


They Go to Hell Alone

by Everlark_Pearl



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-22 00:24:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3708459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Everlark_Pearl/pseuds/Everlark_Pearl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Orphaned and alone, Katniss Everdeen is forced to take desperate measures to ensure her sister Primrose is fed. But when the boy dressed all in black shows up in the dead of night, their bargain takes her on a journey that will change things forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Go to Hell Alone

Katniss could hardly listen to it anymore. 

The deep, barking cough that her mother had been battling with for weeks had started out as just a simple cold. She assured Katniss and her sister Primrose that she knew how to handle it, that she had the medicine to take care of it. But as the days wore on, that seemingly simple cold moved to her chest and brought on bouts of coughing so forceful that they left the woman wheezing and clutching her chest after every fit.

She tried to hide the blood tinged rag that accompanied the coughing, but both of her daughters were quick to notice that the balled up cloth in her fist was far from clean. They didn’t call attention to it, however. Instead, they exchanged terrified looks that told the other they knew exactly what it meant but were too afraid to say it out loud. 

It was a Monday when their mother stopped getting out of bed. The pain had become too great. The fever, too high. So when she pulled Katniss close -- her teeth chattering from the chills despite the heat that radiated from her body -- and begged Katniss to take the last of their money into town and to the apothecary to get the medicine she never truly had to begin with, Katniss knew the end was coming. 

Prim knew it, too. Though her mother kept her voice soft and for Katniss’s ears only, the youngest Everdeen was far from naive. In fact, it was Prim that spent her nights at their mother’s bedside, pressing cold wash cloths to the woman’s fevered face and wiping the blood streaked spittle from her mouth after every cough. In many ways, Katniss thought that Prim knew she was about to become an orphan long before she ever did. 

But despite this realization, Katniss did as she was told. She shoved the family’s last few bills into her pocket and hoped her sister wouldn’t have to watch their mother die all on her own. Then, she headed out on the long, dirt road that separated the Everdeen’s farmhouse from the town, the Earth crunching under the weight of her boots as she walked. Just thinking of the apothecary forced a bitterness to rise up in the back of her throat. She hated the apothecary. She hated that _those_ people were the difference between saving her mother and burying her. And most of all, she hated that they were the reason this was happening in the first place. 

“The medicine ain’t ready,” the apothecary woman snarled, turning her head away from where Katniss stood at the other side of the counter. “I can have the delivery boy bring it to your _farm_ when it’s done.”

Katniss balled her fists and clenched her teeth, blocking every word of disdain she wanted to spew at the woman. It was all she could do to keep herself from lashing out. She couldn’t risk being denied medicine now. 

The woman let out a heavy sigh, “ _Well?”_ she asked, exasperatedly. “Do ya want it or not?”

“Yeah, I’ll take it,” Katniss grumbled, dropping the crumpled bills onto the counter. “Do you think you can get it delivered as soon as it’s ready?” She hesitated before adding the next part, but decided dropping the information couldn’t hurt. “Mom’s really sick.”

It was quick, but Katniss was sure she saw the coldhearted woman’s face soften just a bit at the mention of her mother’s grave illness. “I’ll see what I can do,” she muttered quietly. 

Katniss wasn’t sure what she was expecting to see when she returned home, but for some reason it wasn’t her mother still in bed, her breathing even harsher and more labored than it was before she left for town. Each breath looked painful. So painful that Katniss could hardly look at the woman when she told her that the apothecary didn’t have the medicine ready for her to bring home. She was certain she saw the last of her mother’s resolve disappear at that moment. Looking at her after that was a struggle -- like she was already gone.

“She doesn’t have much time left,” Prim whispered, dragging Katniss out of their mother’s bedroom.

“I know, Prim,” Katniss said bitingly. Then the question she’d been wanting to ask since her mother’s last minute request came tumbling out, “Is this medicine even going to help her now?”

At just thirteen years old, Primrose Everdeen was well versed in medicine. Just like their mother, the girl was born with an iron gut and shining bedside manner. It was a pity she’d never get to make good use of her gifts as long as the apothecary owners stayed in town. 

“I don’t think so,” Prim admitted, craning her neck around Katniss’s shoulder to check on their mother. The girls watched her take a shallow breath, made worse by the gasp that accompanied it. Prim shook her head. “I’m not sure how much longer she’s going to be able to keep breathing like that.” 

“Is there anything we can do?” Katniss asked desperately. “Anything mom taught you? Just until the medicine gets here.”

“There’s a salve to rub on her chest that I could make if we had the herbs for it,” Prim said. “But we don’t. You could go back to the apothecary and check if they do, though.”

Katniss shook her head, “We don’t have any money left,” she said, observing the fear in her sister’s eyes. 

Prim wouldn't say it at that moment, but she didn’t have to. Katniss already knew what she was thinking. What were they going to do after their mother died? Money and food was hard enough to come by even when she was healthy. If they were left to their own devices, how were they going to survive? They had to keep their mother alive until the medicine arrived. With a dose or two of the strongest antibiotic the apothecary made, maybe there was a chance she could make it. Maybe there was a chance it’d all be ok. They had to have hope.

The medicine arrived too late. 

An hour after their mother took her final breath there was a loud, almost frantic knock at the door. Katniss wasn’t surprised to see Gale Hawthorne standing on the wooden porch, the white paper bag with the medicine they’d been waiting for clutched in his fists. 

What should she say to him? How do you tell someone that your mother’s just died? Luckily -- if you could call it luck at all -- the look on Gale’s face told her she didn’t have to say a word. His steely, gray eyes softened and panned to the crooked and rotting planks under his feet. 

“I’m sorry, Katniss,” Gale muttered, throwing the medicine bag behind his back momentarily, as though moving it from Katniss’s view would change her mother’s fate. “Do you -- um, should I leave this here?” 

“I’m not sure what we’re going to do with it now,” Katniss said shortly. 

“Right.. well, I can take it back to the apothecary for you, but you won’t be able to get your money back,” Gale explained. “It’s already been spent.”

“I guess I’ll take it then,” Katniss said, grabbing the bag from Gale’s hand and peering inside. It made her sick to see the small, white bottle at the bottom. To know that something so small had the chance to decide a person’s fate didn’t seem fair. How could a bottle dictate the length of a human’s life?

“I should go now,” Gale said, taking an unsteady step backward. “I really am sorry, Katniss.” 

“Gale! Wait!” Katniss called, causing the boy to stop and turn around. She didn’t want to ask for help, but there was no other choice. “Do you think you could help me with something?”

“Help you with what?”

“I just-- I’m gonna need…” she couldn’t say it. Not yet. “You can have my father’s old sickle for your trouble. It’s still in the barn. You can probably get a lot for it.”

“Why don’t you sell it for your family then?” Gale retorted. 

“Because I have no other way to pay you and I really need your help…” she looked at the dark haired boy with as much courage as she could muster as she muttered the next part. “My mother’s body can’t stay in this house forever."

Gale swallowed hard when he realized what Katniss was asking. “Where do you need her to go?” he asked. 

“Back there.” Katniss pointed beyond the barren field at the side of the house. “Next to that wooden cross.” 

“Alright,” Gale said, stepping back onto the porch. “I’ll help you.” 

XXXX

Removing her mother -- shrouded in her old bed sheets --from the house and helping Gale dig her grave was definitely the hardest thing Katniss had ever done. Having to see her younger sister pitch in with the grave digging, and having to use her hands no less, only made it worse. 

Every time Gale pushed the old, rusted shovel into the dry Earth, Katniss was afraid it’d snap in two and all three of them would be scooping hunks of dirt out with their hands, but it held up throughout. And it held up after they’d rolled Mrs. Everdeen’s body as gently as possible down into the hole and Gale began to scoop the dirt back into it. 

_We shouldn’t have had to bury our parents so young,_ Katniss thought. 

It was something you did when you’d grown old enough to take care of yourself. After you’ve moved into a home that was yours, and perhaps even had a family of your own. Not this soon. Not like this.

But it’d happened. And now their mother was resting in a grave right next to their father’s, who’d died six years prior after the horses pulling their plough spooked. The plough’s blades were driven back against his body, causing several deep gashes that never fully healed. He insisted that he’d be fine, but once the infection set in, it killed him in less than a week. 

From that moment forward, Katniss and Prim were forbidden to even attempt to keep the farm going. They’d helped their father before, and Katniss was sure she could at least keep the crops going from season to season, but her mother refused to allow it. Her fear of a second accident was too strong. 

The farm dwindled quickly. Katniss and Prim salvaged as much as they could from the existing crops, but without maintenance, not much survived. It was enough to last a couple of weeks at best. It’d never last them through the winter. They were forced to sell their animals to neighboring farms that still had their operations in tact. 

After the animals were gone the equipment went next, and it wasn’t long before the land that was once a lush and thriving farm became dry and infertile. The business Mr. and Mrs. Everdeen had built together, their livelihood, was gone and they’d never get it back again.

With the last morsels of dirt shoveled back into place, Gale took a step back, allowing the sisters a moment alone with their parents, but Katniss was constantly aware of his presence. As Prim stood in silent observation at the foot of her parents’ graves, Katniss couldn’t manage the same. She could feel Gale’s eyes burning a hole into her back. 

“Follow me,” Katniss blurted out. She turned away from the graves, leaving her sister to continue mourning, and trudged off toward the old barn with Gale following closely behind. Like everything else on the Everdeen’s property, the barn was more of an eyesore than anything else. The white paint had become weathered and cracked, chipping off in spots to reveal the blackened and rotting wood underneath. 

“You don’t have to give me the sickle, Katniss,” Gale said, jogging to catch up with her as she entered the barn. 

“Yes I do.” She grabbed the tool from the wall and offered it to Gale. “You didn’t have to help me, but you did. Take it.”

“I was here anyway,” Gale reminded her, pushing her hand away. “Keep it. Bring it to town and sell it to another farmer. You could probably feed your sister for weeks with the money you’d get from it.”

Katniss thought about what Gale said. The money she’d get really would help her and Prim, but letting Gale leave empty handed after what he’d just helped them do would always leave her feeling like she owed him something for his troubles. 

“No,” Katniss said resolutely. “You should be paid for your work, and this is all I have for you.”

“What about this shovel?” Gale suggested, picking up the rusted tool and looking at it appraisingly. The crack in the neck had become even more pronounced since Gale used it, but he looked at it as though he had genuine interest.

“That shovel’s useless,” Katniss argued. “What could you possibly do with a rusted, broken thing like that?”

“I can sell it to the blacksmith. I’m sure he’ll have some use for it,” Gale shrugged. “So? Can I take it?”

Katniss weighed her options. Gale was never going to take the sickle, that much was clear. She could continue to argue with him and risk letting him leave empty handed, or she could agree to letting him take the shovel and hope that he really did sell it to the blacksmith. 

“Alright,” Katniss agreed. “Take it, but I hope you’re telling the truth about selling it.”

“Cross my heart,” Gale said, taking a step backward out of the barn. “If you need help deciding who to sell that sickle to, come find me. I’m really sorry again, Katniss.”

“Thanks,” Katniss muttered, dropping her gaze to her feet. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

She watched Gale as he walked off the property, the old and tattered shovel tightly in his grasp, then turned her attention back to Prim once he was out of sight. The younger girl still stood plaintively at her parents’ graves, breaking her gaze only when Katniss stepped up beside her. 

“I was thinking,” Prim started, nervously toying with the end of her braid. “Maybe you could get a job at the apothecary. Maybe we both could. Mom taught me a lot, I’m sure you could learn and then--”

“Prim,” Katniss interrupted, shaking her head. “You know that’s not going to happen. They wouldn’t even take mom back after dad died, and she was their daughter.” 

“And we’re their granddaughters!” Prim cried out, throwing her arms in the air. “Katniss, we have _nothing_. How are we supposed to survive?”

“They’ll never hire us at the apothecary,” Katniss said firmly. “The day mom left them to marry dad sealed that, and you know it.”

“Did she know?” Prim asked, her voice suddenly sounding much younger. “Did she know her daughter was dying?”

Katniss nodded. “She knew.”

“And you don’t think she’d want to help us?” 

“Do you see her here, Prim?!” Katniss shouted. She spun around with her arms outstretched, covering the perimeter of the farm to emphasize her point. “Not only do we have nothing, but we have _nobody_. It’s just us.”

A noise erupted from the youngest Everdeen that sounded more like the deep growl of a hungry bear than the angry cry of a thirteen year old girl. She turned on her heel and stormed off into the house, unwilling to listen to Katniss for another minute. 

Prim didn’t understand what it was like in town. Before their father’s death, things weren’t so bad. The people were friendly, the sales generous. But Katniss learned very quickly that if you had nothing to offer the townspeople of District 12, they had nothing for you in return, and that included their sympathy.

The apothecary, however, was always bad. Run by the people who Katniss would never dare call her grandparents, they made sure that everyone in town knew that they’d disowned their daughter the moment she decided to run off and marry a farmer. 

Katniss could never quite figure out what was so wrong with her father being a farmer. Aren’t the farmers in town the ones that helped keep their shop stocked with medicinal herbs? And with the help of his wife, Mr. Everdeen was at one time the apothecary’s biggest supplier. Yet the old couple refused to accept him, their daughter’s marriage to him, or the their two young daughters.

Prim wasn’t in town with their father nearly as much as Katniss was. She didn’t see how cold the apothecary owners were, even when they went with a full stock of herbs for them to buy. They’d never be accepted there, and Katniss was unwilling to entertain the idea of ever trying. 

She refused to let on that she was scared. They’d figure something out. They had to. The money they’d get from selling the sickle would only last them so long. 

XXXX

“This bread’s gone bad,” Prim announced, dropping the moldy loaf onto the table in front of Katniss. “That’s the last of the food.”

It took some time for Prim to give up on the idea that one or both of them could work at the apothecary. She’d brought it up a few more times after that day by their parents’ graves, and the conversation never went beyond raised voices and a disagreement the girls would never see eye to eye on. 

Prim was insistent that they at least try. They’d never know if it was an option if they didn’t go in and ask. It finally came down to Katniss bringing Prim into town with her to get the younger girl to understand that just because the apothecary owners were supposed to be family, they had no obligation to help either of them if they didn’t want to. While Katniss worked out a deal on her father’s sickle that’d feed them for a good month or more with another farmer in the grain shop, Prim ventured into the apothecary to see for herself just how little their so called “ _family_ ” cared.

Prim wouldn’t say what happened in there that day, but her insistence to leave and stay as far away from that awful shop was enough for Katniss to know that it hadn’t gone the way Prim was hoping it would, and it was enough to get her to stop suggesting they ever ask them for work again. It wasn’t going to help feed them, though.  

Katniss watched Prim tear apart the stale bread, setting aside the parts that had clearly begun to mold. After over a month of having food to eat, they were finally down to their last morsels, and Katniss still hadn’t figured out a way to keep money or food in the household. She was starting to think of the most outlandish things to bring in some sort of income or food. 

“What if we tore down the barn?” Katniss suggested, pulling Prim out of her daze. “We could sell the scrap parts and probably have enough money to keep us fed through the winter.”

“How are we going to tear down an entire barn?” Prim asked, popping a bite of bread into her mouth. 

“I don’t know.” Katniss sighed. “I was just thinking out loud.” 

She grabbed for an untainted piece of bread from Prim’s side of the table and went silent. Neither one of them spoke again as they finished off what remained of their final loaf of bread. There was nothing for Katniss to say. Knowing that her sister would go without food for the foreseeable future because of her was the only thing she could think about. And for the next few weeks, it remained the only thing she’d think about.

All they had was water to drink. Though they searched the land for something they could salvage and eat, they found nothing. Maybe if it were earlier in the year, in the spring when the hardiest of plants still managed to rise up from the sterile Earth that once was their farm, they’d have found something. But winter was approaching quickly. Every breeze took more leaves from the lone tree that shaded their parents’ graves, and every day grew colder and shorter than the last. Time was running out.

Trips into town brought no results. Nobody was hiring. Or perhaps they were hiring, but they just weren’t hiring Katniss. Not even small, one day jobs that’d enable her to bring home dinner for her sister were available to her. Something had to be done. She had to find food, and she had to find it fast. Having to see her sister growing weaker by the day brought painful visions of burying another family in that dry, lifeless plot of land, and she refused to let that happen. 

So, on a particularly cruel, fall day, when the rain fell in sheets and the wind whipped it around so hard that the drops pelted the windows, Katniss blurted out a lie that she hoped her sister would never figure out. 

“I’m going to work for the Hawthornes tomorrow,” she’d said. Her stomach lurched violently at the look on her sister’s face. So hopeful, so excited. 

Truth be told, she hadn’t even asked Gale for work. Why would she? She hadn’t seen him since the day her mother died over two months ago. She had looked for him whenever she was in town, though. She wanted to see how much he’d gotten for the old shovel he insisted on taking. She also had plans to ask if he knew of anyone looking to hire an extra delivery clerk, but once she overheard that the deliveries Gale did make were just enough to help feed his own family, Katniss thought better of trying to track him down to ask him for yet another favor. She had nothing to repay him with this time -- nothing she was willing to give up, at least, though she had briefly considered the price her body would go for among the town’s men.  

“Just for tomorrow?” Prim asked curiously, sitting down next to Katniss at the kitchen table. 

“Yes,” Katniss lied. “It’s a one day job, but it’ll afford us dinner. And maybe if I do a good enough job, they’ll ask me back.”

“What are you going to be doing?” 

“I -- um..” Katniss stammered, looking away from her sister and focusing on a small hole in the wall in front of her instead. “They haven’t told me yet.”

“Well what time do you go? Do they need any extra help?” Prim continued. “Maybe I could come too.”

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” Katniss said quickly. Even if she hadn’t been lying to her sister she would have told her no. It’d been too long since Prim had eaten a proper meal. “You’re too weak to be working right now. You should just wait here for me.” 

“Well put in a good word for me, alright? And tell Rory Hawthorne I said hello,” Prim said, pushing the chair away from the table and rising to her feet. “I’m going to bed. Will you be here when I wake up?”

“Probably,” Katniss said. “I’m not going until early afternoon.”

Prim nodded and left the kitchen, and when Katniss finally heard her sister’s bedroom door click shut, she let out a heavy sigh. How could she lie to Prim like that? She’d never lied to her before,but desperation could make a person do things they normally wouldn’t, and she _was_ desperate.

She spent the hours she should’ve been sleeping trying to convince herself that this was a good idea. There was no way to capture any squirrels or birds for them to eat, not after selling all of their father’s hunting equipment over the years. Even their mother’s wedding ring had been buried with her, so selling that wasn’t even an option to them. The money garnered from that ring could have fed them for months. There was no other option for Katniss. With a heavy grumble as she burrowed into her blankets, she made one last attempt to force her mind to believe that her plan was the right one. And though she wasn’t quite sold, she knew it was their only hope -- she was going to have to steal their dinner. 

XXXX

It’d be easiest to steal from the bakery, Katniss decided. During working hours, their day old breads were put out in a bin at the front of the shop and left virtually unattended. Though it was the job of whoever was in charge of the front counter to keep an eye on who perused the selections outside, it was known that things were run on an honor system more than anything, because old man Mellark was usually the one at the front of the bakery. His eyesight had all but left him in his old age, but he refused to stop working. He’d probably die in that bakery the same way his wife had four years before. He didn’t contribute much to the operation anymore, that duty had been passed on to his two sons. They loyally kept him around because the bakery was all that the old man had left.

The quietest part of the day in town was at noon. During that hour, deliveries halted, shops shut down, and the farmers finished their daily sales and retreated back to their homes to tend to their crops, animals, and prepare for the next day’s haul for town. There’d be just enough activity around the square to keep Katniss’s presence inconspicuous, but not enough for anyone to notice what she was planning to do. She was largely ignored in town anyway, and this was one time that’d prove to be a beneficial circumstance. However, it didn’t stop the bitterness from welling up when she reasoned out that if the townspeople had given her a chance in the first place, she wouldn’t have to resort to stealing from them at all. 

There were no hints of an indian summer in the air that day. Fall had rushed in quickly and mercilessly, shielding the sun with gray clouds and winds that left exposed cheeks red and stinging. It made Katniss’s decision to wear her father’s old winter coat far less suspicious. She could shove a couple loaves of bread into there and carry them home without anyone ever noticing a thing. 

She said her goodbyes to Prim and left for town, her nerves whipping up into a heavy slurry in her stomach. She hoped it wasn’t the last time she’d see her. The entire town would notice them if Katniss were caught stealing, and not in the way she needed them to. She’d likely never see Prim again once the townspeople voted on how to deal with her thievery. They’d find somewhere for Prim to go, and it’d likely be to her grandparents at the apothecary. Katniss didn’t want to think about what life would be like for Prim in a situation like that. She just knew she could not get caught.

As predicted, it was fairly quiet in town. Just a few townspeople could be seen in front of each shop. Most of them were socializing. One group laughed loudly at a story a pudgy, balding man told as another group spoke quietly while huddled close together. None of them paid any attention to Katniss as she walked by. 

“Hey, Katniss!”

At the sound of her name, Katniss whipped around only to find Gale bounding toward her, a large smile on his face underneath his gray knit hat. _Of course_ that’d be the day she ran into him. 

“Long time no see,” Gale said, stopping in front of Katniss. “How are you and Prim doing?”

“We’re getting by,” Katniss lied, offering nothing more. “And you? Did you ever sell that shovel?”

“I told you I would,” Gale said proudly. “Sold it to the blacksmith the day after you gave it to me. Did you sell the sickle?”

“Yeah,” Katniss said. She had to keep her answers vague. Gale couldn’t know that she and Prim had been without food for weeks. “In the grain shop. Got quite a bit for it.”

“Good...” Gale trailed off as an awkward silence filled the space between them. “Well.. I’m glad you and your sister are doing alright. You should bring her around one afternoon, my brother Rory said he misses seeing her at school. Maybe we could all have lunch together or something and spend a couple hours at the fountain.”

It wasn’t uncommon for the kids of District 12 to stop going to school before they graduated. Many were called to work for their families to help bring in money, something Katniss never wanted Prim to have to do, but after their mother died that summer, neither of the girls went back and nobody in town questioned it. 

“That sounds nice,” Katniss said, nodding. “I’ll let Prim know Rory’s been thinking of her.”

“You here to sell something?” Gale finally asked. Katniss had been waiting for it, the question as to what brought her into town. It wasn’t something she did everyday like the rest of District 12, and though her appearances were mostly ignored, someone was bound to ask eventually, and it had to be the day that her trip was for less than noble reasons. 

“Just picking up some dinner for me and Prim,” Katniss said. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t exactly the truth, either. 

“Can I walk with you?” Gale asked, lifting a brown paper bag up when he noticed Katniss’s eyes drift toward it. “It’s a delivery for one of the farms, but they can wait a few minutes.”

“No,” Katniss said, shaking her head. “You should go deliver it. I haven’t even decided what to get yet. I’d just hold you up. I don’t want you to get fired on account of me.”

“It’s really not a big deal,” Gale asserted. 

“You should make the delivery, Gale,” Katniss retorted impatiently. “We’ll have lunch one day soon, alright?”

“When?”

Katniss sighed. Since when was she so interesting? She’d known Gale Hawthorne for years and he never spoke to her until the day he showed up an hour late with medicine that was no longer beneficial to her mother. And even after that he’d been absent for weeks. Why did he have to stick around today?

“How about next week at this time?” Katniss suggested. She and Prim would still have some bread left over in a week, so it wouldn’t look suspicious to Gale. Showing up with no food would just leave him with more questions. It was also a good idea to use the day to get Prim out and socializing with a school friend. She hadn’t done much since their mother died, and it was time to get her out of the house a little more. 

“Alright,” Gale agreed, smiling. “Rory will be happy to see Prim again. She’s all he talks about, it seems. I’ll see you then, Katniss.”

With a quick wave, Gale turned and walked off in the opposite direction, pulling his coat up closer to his face when a cold wind whipped through the town. Katniss didn’t want to feel guilty that the reason she agreed to have lunch with Gale was more for Prim’s enjoyment than her own, but she couldn’t help it. The only person to take any interest in how Katniss and Prim were doing was Gale. Unfortunately, that interest also brought up questions and concerns that Katniss wasn’t comfortable answering. If he knew that part of the reason she made lunch plans was to keep him from prying into her life any more, it probably wouldn’t be appreciated, but it had to be done.

The bakery was closed for the hour. However, old man Mellark and his sons were still inside. Katniss could see them through the window and waited, observing the two men talking to their father before disappearing beyond a pair of swinging doors that led to the kitchen. The old man was alone again. He sat on a stool behind the bakery’s front counter, his head lolling back and forth for a little while before he closed his eyes. 

It was the perfect moment, and Katniss moved quickly, side stepping away from the shop’s large picture window and settling the front of her body flush against the large, wooden crate full of various breads. The sign read that they were four dollars per loaf, or two loaves for seven dollars, and you were welcome to choose from whichever styles of bread were still available. 

Katniss spied two loaves of a hearty seeded bread within her grasp. She swiped them as quickly as she could, shoving them into the unzipped coat with relative ease. As she zipped the coat up over the bread, she shoved her hands in the pockets and walked as fast as she could without looking guilty. She was out of town in minutes, immediately slowing her pace as the soles of her boots came into contact with the muddy dirt road. It was time to get back to her very hungry sister.

Prim didn’t disappoint. Katniss toasted up a few slices of the first loaf as soon as she got home, hoping the flavor of the various seeds baked both on top of and inside would flavor it enough to not miss the taste of melted butter slathered on it. Prim held her first slice in her hands as though it was the finest meal she’d ever been served and ate it happily, so enthralled with her food that she didn’t even think to ask Katniss how her day of work with the Hawthornes went. When Katniss mentioned having lunch with Rory the following week, her happiness was so apparent that Katniss couldn’t help but feel that her drastic decision had been the right one all along. 

That night, Prim went to bed with a full stomach for the first time in weeks, and Katniss went to bed with a heart that, for the first time since their mother died, wasn’t weighed down with worry. It was a shame it wouldn’t last very long.

Three days after Katniss came home with bread and lies about how she’d obtained them, Prim’s questioning had finally begun. Katniss knew the inquisitive and attentive teenager wouldn’t let it go until she got the answers she was seeking, so she had no other choice but the indulge her without backing herself into a corner she couldn’t lie her way out of. 

“Did the Hawthornes pay you with money or food?” Prim asked, swiping and end slice of the first loaf of bread. 

“Bread to start,” Katniss answered quickly, refusing to make eye contact with her sister.

“Do you think they’ll ask you to go back?” Prim pressed, eyeing the untouched bread in front of Katniss. “Cause I’d really like to go with you sometime -- Are you gonna eat that?”

“Take it,” Katniss muttered, pushing the slice across the table. “They asked me to check in with them in a few days to see if they had work for me.” 

Every lie Katniss told put her further away from the contentment she felt the night she brought the stolen bread home. She’d stopped sleeping, the nagging worries coming back in full force, made worse by wondering how she’d keep Prim from mentioning her lie during lunch with Gale and Rory. She hadn’t been thinking about that when she agreed to lunch that day. All she wanted was for Gale to go make his delivery and leave her alone to swipe the bread. 

“Are you going to go? Do you think I can go with you this time?” 

“We’ll see,” Katniss sighed, barely paying attention to what her sister had even asked her. “Could you not bring up me working for the Hawthornes when we have lunch with Gale and Rory?”

“Why?” Prim asked, her eyes narrowing in confusion. “They both know you’ve worked for them, right?”

“I just don’t want anyone in town overhearing that I did,” Katniss explained. “Okay?”

“No problem,” Prim said, focusing her attention on the bread in front of her. “I won’t mention it.” 

If Prim agreeing to stay quiet could’ve helped relieve some of Katniss’s guilt, she would’ve taken it. But as day turned into night and Prim retreated off to bed, Katniss remained awake, pacing the first floor of the dimly lit house. Back and forth she went, memorizing the pattern of the floorboards with her feet, being careful to avoid the ones that creaked the loudest until something caught her eye from the back window.

The moonlight seemed to catch the outline of a body standing in the middle of their field. The figure was unmoving, but most definitely there. Who would be standing in their field in the middle of the night? It wasn’t Gale. Gale was taller than the whoever was standing there. 

There was only one explanation: someone had seen her at the bakery and had finally come to scare her into a confession. If a confession was what they wanted, they were going about it the wrong way. Standing in an empty field and attempting to scare Katniss wasn’t going to get her to go out to them. Anything could happen in the dark, and with as far away as their house was from the next, nobody would hear her scream. 

She decided to ignore the figure. Eventually they’d get bored with trying to scare her and they’d go back home. She knew that nobody in the district would risk getting caught trespassing during the day, so they’d have to be gone by morning. 

And she was right. After a few restless hours of sleep that involved more tossing, turning, and worrying than sleeping, Katniss pulled herself out of bed and rushed to her window that overlooked the back field. Just as she suspected, the figure was gone and there was no evidence of anyone ever being there at all. 

What Katniss wasn’t prepared for though was the figure returning for a second night. And she was even less prepared for it to continue to happen night after night for the rest of the week. It was always the same. The figure stood in the field as though it were a scarecrow, ignoring the cold and nights of chilly, pelting rain. They made no move toward the house, but the longer the figure stood there, the more Katniss’s guilt made her feel compelled to confront whoever, or whatever, was out there.

She had to do it. With their lunch with Gale and Rory the next afternoon, Katniss couldn’t risk anyone in town knowing her secret if she wanted to make her way back into town without issue. Going out there was dangerous, she knew that. She had no idea what this person was planning to do once they’d lured her out there, but if it was the only way to get them to stay away, she was going to have to find out. 

Equipped with a lantern, Katniss quietly made her way out to the field. With the way that it’d rained the entire day, only stopping as the sun began to set, her footsteps were louder and clumsier than she ever intended them to be as they slid into the cold mud. Tt didn’t take long before her pants were covered in it. She ignored it and continued forward, her lantern held high enough so it’d illuminate a path toward the figure. 

She could tell it was a male, the broad shoulders gave that away instantly. Everything else, however, was a mystery. He was dressed head to toe in black, with a hood pulled up over his head and shadowing his face. 

“Who are you?” Katniss hissed in a loud whisper as she approached. “Why are you here?”

There was no answer. She stepped closer and raised the lantern higher in attempts to get a look at the man’s face. That’s when she noticed it, the white rose pinned to the breast of his heavy, black jacket. It was the kind of thing you’d see at a wedding, or sometimes, a funeral. Who would pin a rose to their jacket to stand out in a dark field? The thought was unnerving.

“I had to take that bread,” Katniss blurted out. “My sister had to eat. I had no other choice.” 

The man still remained silent. 

“If you’re here to punish us, don’t punish her. She didn’t know the bread was stolen. Punish me. Do whatever you have to do, but make sure she goes somewhere she’ll be taken care of. Don’t send her to the apothecary. Please. Anywhere but the apothecary.”

“I’m not here to punish you,” the figure finally said. “I’m here to make you an offer.”

He sounded much younger than Katniss imagined him being. More like a boy than a man The voice, however was one she didn’t recognize. 

“Like a job offer?” she asked. 

“No, not a job offer.” 

“Then what?” 

“Through me, I can see to it that you and your sister will have all the food you’ll ever need,” the boy explained. “I can see to it that you’ll never have to steal from that bakery again.”

“How could you possibly do that if this doesn’t involve work?” Katniss asked suspiciously, practically shoving the lantern in the boy’s face. “How do you know about the bakery?”

The dark hood came down with one swift motion, and Katniss was almost alarmed to see that she was, in fact, talking to a boy. He couldn’t have been any older than she was, and he most definitely was not from town. She’d have noticed him before if he were. A mane of wavy, ash blonde hair fell into place and framed his face, while deep set blue eyes that held an unsettling sense of emptiness stared back at her. 

“I’ve never had anyone stick a lantern in my face to get a better look at me,” he quipped.

And then he smiled, two rows of pristine, white teeth. Katniss didn’t trust a smile with that many teeth. 

“I think you owe it to me,” Katniss bit, staring up into blue emptiness. “You’ve been trespassing on my land for days now.”

“You haven’t exactly been making my job very easy,” the boy said. “You’re a stubborn one.”

“Your job,” Katniss repeated, keeping the lantern close to the boy’s face. “What exactly is your job? Illegally trespassing and then offering to give me food? Is this some kind of bribe to keep me from alerting the town?”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“How do you know?” Katniss retorted.

“Because you know they’d never listen to you,” the boy reminded her. “You’re practically invisible to them.”

“What do you know?,” Katniss said, refusing to admit that he was right. “If your offer doesn’t involve work, then explain to me how this could ever work?”

“We make a bargain,” the boy said simply. “You give me something, and I’ll make sure you never go hungry again.”

“Like a trade?” Katniss questioned. “I have nothing to trade.”

“You have plenty to trade, Katniss,” the boy replied. “And plenty of choices you can make. You just haven’t realized it yet.”

“What do want from me?” Katniss snapped, offended by the boy’s arrogant tone. She wasn’t ready to start thinking about how he knew so much about her, including her name. 

“Anything you’re willing to go without,” the boy said. “I’m not interested in material possessions.” 

Katniss couldn’t respond. If he wasn’t interested in material possessions, then what _was_ he interested in? 

“You don’t have to decide today,” the boy continued. “I’ll give you time to think about what you might be willing to give up in exchange for all the food you could ever want. Enough to eliminate the need to ever steal from that bakery again. You’ll won’t have to see your sister go hungry anymore.”

What if there was truth to the boy’s words? What if there was a way that he could ensure that Prim would always have food to eat? She didn’t want to entertain the boy. Odds were he was pulling a prank anyway, but his words did have a certain hold on her. She couldn’t stop herself from considering it. 

“How will I know where to find you once I’ve decided?” Katniss asked. “I don’t even know who you are.”

“Don’t worry,” the boy said, another electric grin lighting up his face. “I’ll be here until you’ve made your decision.”

“How long do I have?” 

“As long as you need,” the boy answered, flipping his hood back over his head. “I’m very patient. But I trust you’ll want to make a decision before your sister gets too hungry again.”

XXXX

“Katniss?”

The sound of Gale’s voice cut through the foggy depths of Katniss’s mind, pulling her away from her thoughts of the blue eyed boy’s offer. It’d kept her several steps behind the others all day. Flashing images of empty blue eyes and electric grins appeared over and over again, lingering despite Katniss’s attempts to ignore them -- not unlike the boy himself. 

“Huh?” 

“I asked if you wanted another piece of cheese?” Gale said, holding a small bowl toward her while his gray eyes searched her face. 

“Oh.” She made a move to grab a third piece of cheese from the bowl, but stopped herself. She didn’t have much of an appetite, and the food she had grabbed was safely tucked away in a napkin in her pocket. She’d give it to Prim later. “No thanks.”

“Are you alright?” Gale pried. He moved his head back into Katniss’s line of vision, forcing her to look at him. “You seem kind of distracted today.” 

“I’m fine.” She turned away from Gale’s concerned gaze and noticed that Prim wasn’t next to her anymore. “Where’d Prim go?”

“She’s on the other side of the fountain with Rory. I gave them a few coins and told them to go make some wishes,” Gale said, his eyes still lingering on Katniss’s face. “You were looking right at me when I did it.”

“Oh.”

“Are you sure you’re alright?” 

His hand was covering hers before she could even register what was happening, the rough skin of his palm grazing gently over the smooth skin on the top of her’s as he gave it a soft, reassuring squeeze. 

She pulled her hand away quickly, casting a questioning glare in his direction. What gave him the impression that she wanted him to hold her hand? Or that she needed her hand held in the first place? A desperate plea for help burying her mother and an uncomfortable lunch was hardly a reason to believe that holding her hand was appropriate. 

She hated to admit it, but the brief contact did feel good. Maybe it wasn’t the contact at all, but the message behind it. That someone was there at a time when she was feeling more alone than ever. That someone had noticed something was wrong, even if she had no plans to tell him about the severity of it.

He didn’t reach for her hand again, but he wouldn’t let her and Prim walk back to their house alone until they’d reached the edge of town, where Gale refused to leave until she took the leftover food from lunch. Though it frustrated her, deep down Katniss was grateful for Gale’s equal stubbornness. She needed the food to keep Prim fed until she made a decision about the blue eyed boy, she was just too proud to admit it. Gale’s persistence allowed her to accept the food without seeming desperate. 

Knowing that there was enough food to last another week, Katniss was able to take her time thinking about her encounter with the mysterious boy. Night after night, she sat in front of the window and looked out into the field where he stood, waiting, just as he had been all along. He wasn’t lying when he said he was very patient. 

She was curious to learn more about him.Where did he disappear to when the sun rose? Where did he come from in the first place? How had he known about the bakery? There were so many unanswered questions that one evening before the sun set, her curiosity brought her out to the field to search for any sign of footsteps leading away from their land. Maybe she could follow them and get a sense of where this boy had come from, or a clue as to where he went before daylight came.

Fall was beginning to give way to winter now, and snow would begin falling soon. It was normally a time of year that Katniss dreaded. Being forced to stay in the house more than she was ever comfortable with used to make her feel restless. But that year it felt welcome. An excuse to hide away while the rest of the town shut her out. For the first time she could appreciate the way the cold bit her cheeks and froze her toes as she hiked through the field, searching for any sign that’d tell her more about the boy.

Her search only stopped when she reached the bare tree her parents’ graves were nestled under. With no trace of the boy anywhere, she instead focused on the two wooden crosses at the head of each grave. Her father’s was weathered and worn, the yellow paint she and Prim had used to decorate the marker had faded considerably after six years in the elements. It was a shame she didn’t have anything to repaint it with.

She was just about to reach out to straighten the second plank of wood that’d come loose when she heard a crash from the barn. As old as it was, and as long as it’d been since it was tended to, odds were rats had taken over and were causing the noises. Or a rotting plank from the roof had finally gave way and collapsed. 

It didn’t stop Katniss from investigating, however. She entered the barn slowly, the musty smell of old wood taking over her senses. She hadn’t gone into the barn much since her father died. Only quick trips to retrieve a tool -- back when the barn still had tools stored -- when her mother had asked, and when she did go in there she didn’t waste much time remembering the old smells. 

But as she slowly tiptoed into the space, she could’ve sworn she could still smell the horses that once resided there. Their old hay remained strewn across the ground behind their stalls, dark with caked on mud and mold. 

“Hey.”

Warm breath tickled Katniss’s neck. She jumped, swiping at the air furiously as a pair of strong hands wrapped around her shoulders and the boy from the field came into her vision.

“Calm down!” the boy said, an air of amusement in his voice. “You weren’t supposed to get combative!”

“I wasn’t supposed to--” Katniss glared at the boy. He seemed to think that scaring her was funny. “You’re hiding in my barn!”

“I’m not hiding,” the boy corrected, removing his hands from Katniss’s shoulders. “I’m waiting.”

“In _my_ barn,” Katniss reminded him. “I don’t even know you!”

“To be fair, I don’t really know you, either.”

“You know my name, you know where I live...” Katniss said. “That’s more than I can say for you.”

“Well do you want to know my name then?” the boy asked. 

“Yeah, I do,” she replied boldly. 

“So then ask me,” the boy challenged.

“Alright,” Katniss said. “What’s your name?”

“It’s Peeta.”

“And where are you from, Peeta?” Katniss continued, shocked at the forwardness of her own words. “You’re not from District 12, are you? I’ve never seen you around town.” 

“Here and there,” Peeta said. 

“That’s not an answer.”

“Well it’s the only one I have for you,” Peeta said firmly. 

“How am I supposed to trust what you tell me when you give me answers like that?” Katniss said. “You’ve been milling around here for days now and I still have no idea how you got here.”

“I told you this is my job,” Peeta reminded her.

“And that’s supposed to explain to me why you’re on my property? My sister better not see you…”

“Don’t worry,” Peeta said assuringly. “She’ll never see me.”

“You sound pretty sure of yourself,” Katniss said. 

“Because I am.” He took a step closer, bringing his hands back up to Katniss’s shoulders. She tensed under his touch, which didn’t go unnoticed. “If I were here to hurt you, don’t you think I would have done it by now?”

“That’s just the sort of thing an axe murderer would say,” Katniss whispered. 

To her surprise, Peeta laughed. “Do you see any axes around here, Katniss?”

This _Peeta_ was something else. Arrogant, but with a touch of charm that Katniss couldn’t help but be drawn to. There was something else about him, too. Something that kept Katniss standing in that barn that night. She just didn’t know what it was. 

“This still doesn’t make any sense,” she finally said.

“That’s the thing!” Peeta said, clapping his hands together happily. “It’s not supposed to!” 

“Then how do you expect me to agree to a bargain with you?”

“I’ve never had trouble before.” Peeta shrugged as he began pacing a small circle around the barn, the sound of his black boots dragging across the dirt covered ground hung in the air. “You’re even more stubborn than I originally thought.”

“You’ve done this before, then?” Katniss asked, her eyes fixated on the lone spec of white pinned to Peeta’s chest as he circled around her. “You’ve made bargains with people before?”

“It’s my _job,_ Katniss.” For the first time, Peeta sounded exasperated. “This is what I do.”

“How?” Katniss pressed. “How can you offer people so much?”

“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?” Peeta said defensively. “I’m here to help you.”

“But you’re not telling me _why_!” Katniss shouted, immediately lowering her voice. If Prim heard her yelling, she’d come out to see what was wrong, and she didn’t need to be part of this. “You’re acting like it’s wrong for me not to trust you, this strange boy I’ve never met before, the minute you show up on my property! _In the middle of the night_ , even!” 

Peeta stopped walking and eyed Katniss, his eyes narrowing on her. “I guess that does sound a little crooked, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, it does,” Katniss sighed. “Maybe you’re some con-artist that’s here to prey upon my desperation to feed my sister. You’re charming enough...”

The corner of Peeta’s mouth lifted into a smirk. “I’m not asking you to trust me, but at least consider the offer and what you might want to give me in return. Think of your sister.”

It was a low blow bringing up Prim, and Peeta knew it. He’d struck a nerve. 

“Give me an example then,” Katniss coaxed. “What is something a person has offered you?”

“That’s for you to decide,” Peeta said. “I can’t make that decision for you. This won’t work if I do.”

“What if I make the wrong choice?” 

“There’s always a consequence, Katniss,” he said. “With everything you do, which is why I need you to take this seriously. I’m not a con-artist, I’m not an axe murderer. I’m here to help you feed your sister.”

There was something in Peeta’s expression that told Katniss he wasn’t lying. The crooked smirk was all but wiped from his face, and those empty blue eyes stared dead on into Katniss’s as he spoke. Nobody had ever stared at her with such intensity before. The hairs stood up on the back of her neck when Peeta took another step forward and whispered his next sentence. 

“When you’re ready, let me know.”

With that, Peeta flipped his hood up as he left the barn and walked out into the night. 

They were back at square one. Peeta continued to stay out in the field every night, his body, unmoving and cloaked in blackness while he waited for Katniss to come to him with her decision. 

Katniss on the other hand realized very quickly that there was nothing she could do to make her decision any easier. Talking to Peeta had only given her information, not guidance. But that was probably the point. Peeta had said that he couldn’t tell her what to offer, so what sort of guidance would he be able to give her, really? 

They’d reached a deadlock. While Peeta stood in the field night after night, Katniss sat at the window watching him. What she was looking for was anyone’s guess, but one night she could’ve sworn she saw Peeta move his arm up to wave at her, but it was probably just her eyes playing tricks on her. 

In a strange way, Katniss came to rely on Peeta’s presence in that field. It told her that she hadn’t missed her chance to help her sister, that he hadn’t grown tired of waiting for her to make a decision and moved on to a more cooperative candidate. Surely he had others to make bargains with, right? Yet he was there every night like clockwork. 

Until suddenly one night, he was gone. 

Katniss sat at her window for hours waiting for him, every second that ticked by filling her with more and more dread. What happened to him? Did he finally get fed up with waiting and moved on to the next person, or was it something worse than that? Maybe he’d gotten hurt and was someplace nobody would notice until it was too late. 

The thought of it bothered her more than she cared to admit at that moment, but it didn’t stop her from trudging down the stairs, through the field, and into the barn in hopes he’d be in there just as he was the last time she was there. 

She ran in and turned on the lights only to find nothing there. No sign of Peeta, no sign that he’d been there, and no sign that he’d be returning. He was gone, finally fed up with waiting for an answer from Katniss. She’d blown it. Now Prim would either continue to starve or she’d have to resort to stealing once again. Neither option settled well in Katniss’s stomach. 

“Did ya miss me?”

Katniss turned and found Peeta leaning against the barn wall, the black jacket she’d come to know draped over his shoulder and a white, long sleeved shirt in its place. 

“I just thought you--”

“Gave up on you?” Peeta asked, walking toward her. “I wouldn’t do that. I just had something to do before I came back here.”

“It sure felt like you did,” Katniss replied. 

“So you _did_ miss me.” Peeta smiled wide, throwing his jacket around himself before slipping his arms in. “That’s sweet, Katniss.”

“I did _not_ miss you!” Katniss snapped. “I just… I didn’t-- my sister.”

Though the thought was baffling, maybe she did miss Peeta a little bit. She tried to reason with herself as Peeta struggled with the zipper of his jacket. It couldn’t have been Peeta she missed, she hardly knew him. Maybe it was just the idea that she could rely on him being there that she missed. Maybe it was part of why she still hadn’t been able to decide what to do, because she knew as soon as she did, Peeta would be gone. 

“Your sister, huh?” Peeta said, finally pulling his zipper up to his throat. “This appearance of yours has nothing to do with me missing our little date?”

“You’re impossible,” Katniss grumbled, stomping toward the barn entrance. “I thought I’d lost my chance to help my sister and you’re over here making it about… about…”

“About what, Katniss?” Peeta urged. “Don’t think I haven’t seen you watching me through your window. I don’t think that has anything to do with your sister.”

“You don’t know anything,” Katniss hissed. “I’ve made my decision. I’ll accept your offer.”

“And what do you have for me in return?”

“I…” 

“You don’t know, do you?” Peeta asked. “You haven’t decided at all yet.”

“I know I want to do it,” Katniss argued, balling her fists. Peeta was really testing her patience. She could feel all of the blood in her body moving through her veins. “I just don’t know what I’m willing to give up yet.”

“Then you have more thinking to do.”

“You’re right, I do,” Katniss said hastily. She didn’t wait for Peeta to say anything else before storming out of the barn.

“Katniss! Wait!” 

“What?!” Katniss said, keeping her voice as quiet as she could. 

“Do I get to look forward to seeing you at your window again?” 

She’d had enough. If he wasn’t going to take this seriously, the one that insisted that _she_ did, then she had no time for him. All she had to do was come up with something to offer him and he’d be on his way. To think that she’d actually wondered if she did miss him that night.

She never imagined that the very next night would have her back outside the barn, looking for Peeta again. 

Why she did it, she couldn’t quite explain. Using Prim as an excuse could only work for so long, but she’d be lying if she said not seeing Peeta in his usual spot for a second night in a row pulled at something deep within her stomach. 

Unlike the night before, Peeta was in the barn when she got there, sitting on the floor, huddled against a wall with the black, hooded jacket underneath him. 

“Hey,” she said cautiously.

“Well look who’s back,” Peeta said, sitting up straighter. “Care to sit down?”

Katniss stood feet away from him, frozen.There was something in his voice that wasn’t right. While he tried to project the same impervious tone he always had, this was not the same boy. Something was wrong.

“Are you okay?” Katniss asked, approaching him slowly. 

“Never been better,” Peeta said, scooting over as Katniss sat down next to him. “Are _you_ okay?”

“Don’t turn this around on me,” Katniss warned. “It was you that didn’t show up again tonight.”

“You mean for our date?”

This time, Katniss had to smile. “I’m not sure why you keep calling it that.”

“What would you call it then?” Peeta asked, turning to face her. “Two people, meeting at a set time. That’s a date, right?”

“How old are you, Peeta?” Katniss asked, changing the subject. 

“Seventeen,” Peeta replied.

For the first time, Katniss noticed the white, long sleeved shirt he was wearing was wet and hung loosely from his body despite his stocky frame. His teeth were chattering lightly as he spoke. 

In that moment, he looked different, too. Far less intimidating without the blackness of his jacket, and much more like the boy he actually was.

“You’re cold,” Katniss said.

“I’ll be fine,” Peeta said, shuddering as a cold breezy blew through the drafty barn. “I just wanted to dry out a little bit before I went out to the field.”

Instinctively, as she would if she saw that Prim was cold, she reached for the jacket he was sitting on. Before she could realize that she’d forced his body up to release it, she was pulling it out from under him. “Come on,” she urged, brushing the dirt from the jacket. “You should put this on.” 

“Thanks, mom,” Peeta deadpanned.

As he took the jacket and slipped his arms into it, Katniss ran from the barn, sneaking into the house as quietly as she could. Swiping a spare blanket from the closet in the living room, she brought it back out to Peeta and draped it over his crossed legs before sitting back down next to him, ignoring the dirt that caked on her pants. 

Peeta accepted the white blanket without argument, but gave Katniss a look as though he was wondering why she was being so nice to him. Even though he didn’t actually ask the question, Katniss decided to answer him anyway. 

“It’s really cold out here,” she explained with a shrug. “Besides, it’s probably more comfortable than sleeping on the ground and I am the one that’s making you wait around here for me to make up my mind anyway.”

“So I take it that means you haven’t decided yet?” Peeta asked. “You know I could’ve sealed at least four deals in the time it’s taken you?” 

“I’ll have an answer for tomorrow tonight,” Katniss promised. “In the field.”

“And I’ll be there for our date this time,” Peeta said, curling in on himself when Katniss’s palm came down against his shoulder. This time, when he flashed that bright white smile, Katniss couldn’t help but smile back. 

XXXX

That next day seemed to crawl by. She set out dinner for Prim, played a few rounds of poker for hair pins -- a game their father taught them very young -- and even swept the floors of the entire house. None of it helped make the time go by any quicker, and by nightfall there was nothing else for her to do but wait for Peeta to show up. 

She didn’t know why she was so anxious, since she still hadn’t decided what she could offer to Peeta in exchange for the food he’d promised. And it wasn’t until the final moments when she realized the one thing she could now give up and not miss.

Peeta stood in the field at his usual time that night, as still as he’d always been, dressed head to toe in black. The hood was pulled up, once again shielding him from being recognized. Katniss hated that hood, hated the way it put a barrier between Peeta and the job he was sent there to do. She wanted to finish the bargain with Peeta, not the mysterious boy she’d first met. 

With the lantern firmly in her grasp, her walk to the field was purposefully slow, being sure to use every last second that she had to feel sure about what she was about to offer. She let the cold sting her face and reveled in how quiet a winter night could be. Trees stood still, birds no longer sang, all signs of life ceased to exist. She felt alone in a way that felt natural and welcome instead of feeling alone in a town full of people who could help her. That’s when she knew she was sure.

“Have you decided?” Peeta asked as Katniss approached. 

“Yes,” Katniss said, inhaling deeply in attempts to calm the churning in her stomach. “I’m offering you the sun and any warmth it’d bring to the district.” 

Peeta dropped his hood and searched Katniss’s eyes. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Katniss said. “I have nothing else to offer you.”  

“As long as you’re sure, it’s settled,” he said, extending his hand toward Katniss. She took it in hers and with a firm shake, the bargain was made. “The cold of winter will be permanent, but your farm will be alive and thriving by morning.”

To Katniss’s surprise, Peeta began to walk away. That couldn’t have been it. He couldn’t be leaving already. She ran after him, grabbing his arm to force him to stop and look at her.

“That’s it?” she asked. “You’re leaving?”

“Would you rather I stayed?”

Katniss opened her mouth to speak, but nothing intelligible came out. She stammered and tripped over words she was trying to get out, but they refused to come. Instead, she closed her mouth and took a deep breath, thinking her words through carefully before she spoke again.

“That’s all that happens?” she asked. “You just shake my hand and then you walk away?”

“What exactly were you expecting?” Peeta answered, taking a step forward. “Flashing lights? Magic? This doesn’t work like that. When you wake up in the morning, you’ll notice the differences. That’s all you need to know.” He flipped his hood back up and turned to walk away.

“Wait!” Katniss called, stopping Peeta again. “How am I supposed to explain this to my sister?” 

“Don’t worry,” Peeta assured her. “Your sister won’t see the farm the way you’ll now be able to.” He flipped his hood back over his head. “Now please, I really _have_ to leave now.”

Katniss heard the change in his voice right away. That crack in the otherwise cavalier tone he always projected. That crack that alerted her that there was much more to this boy than what she’d gotten to know, and she felt remorse that now she’d never learn any of it.

As Peeta finally turned to walk away, his shoulders hunched and body defeated, Katniss finally decided to let him go. 

She didn’t sleep at all that night. In bed, she tossed and turned, unable to get the sound of Peeta’s voice when he left out of her head. At the window, there was nothing for her to see but darkness. In the barn, other than the blanket she’d brought out to Peeta the night before, it was like nobody had ever been in there. 

It felt silly to be getting so worked up over Peeta leaving. That was the point, wasn’t it? That’s what he did. From the moment he showed up in that field she’d wanted him to leave, but now that he had? She felt unbalanced.

When dawn finally did arrive, Katniss barely realized it. Peeta hadn’t lied when he said she’d see the differences, and the clouds were hard to miss. They hung low, covering every inch of sky for miles in stacks that seemed to go on forever, and they were blacker than night, ensuring that not a single ray of sun could ever penetrate them. 

But it was the sight in their field, alive once again, that brought a smile to Katniss’s face as she exited the house. She hadn’t seen it thrive in over six years. Rows of potatoes, carrots, and tomatoes grew on one side, while two large sections of corn and beans swayed back and forth on the other. All fully grown, all ready for harvesting.

They’d never go hungry again.

“What are you looking at?”

Katniss spun around to find Prim fully dressed and curious, the last slice of bread from their lunch with Gale and Rory secured in her grasp. 

“Nothing special,” Katniss said. She tugged on her sleep tousled braid, realizing she hadn’t even given herself any time to run a brush through her hair before she sprinted down to look at the field. “Looks like it might snow today,” she added, trying to find a way to explain the clouds. 

“It better not,” Prim grumbled, tearing into her bread with her front teeth. “I’m already sick of the cold.”

Katniss hoped the shock of Prim’s statement didn’t show on her face. She couldn’t tell her sister that because of her, spring and summer would never arrive. She couldn’t tell her that she should just get used to the cold weather now that it was their new normal. That’s why she never would. 

But she did have to tell her something to make her believe that the arm full of food she’d eventually bring back into the house was earned through work. 

“I’ll be working today,” Katniss said easily. She didn’t like how easy it was becoming to lie to her sister, but in her mind, it was better than telling her the truth. Stealing, lying to her and her friend? Making bargains with a boy she barely knew? It was all too much and not the kind of message she wanted to send to her young, impressionable sister. 

“Can Rory come over?” Prim asked hopefully, her lips quirking up into a smile. 

Between the joyous look on her sister’s face, and the guilt she was feeling for the web of lies she’d already spun, she almost said yes before thinking about it. She recovered quickly, though, narrowing her eyes at her sister for asking to have a boy in the house when she would be out. 

“Please, Katniss?” Prim begged, her voice taking on a sugary sweet tone. One she often used on their father when she wanted him to bring an extra treat home from the sweet shop after he’d made his sales. “We’re not going to do anything, I swear.”

“Well how will I know if you’re telling the truth if I can’t be here to supervise?” Katniss questioned. 

“You won’t,” Prim admitted, hanging her head and lowering her voice. “But I hoped you’d trust me. I wouldn’t betray your trust like that. It’s just that.. Rory said he wanted to help me keep up with schooling, even if I’m not going anymore. And I just thought…”

“Fine,” Katniss blurted out, pushing away the pangs of guilt. “Rory can come over, but please don’t make me regret this.”

“I won’t, Katniss!” Prim squealed, throwing her arms around her sister’s neck. “I’ll wait for him outside of the school and tell him you said yes.”

“You know you could always go back to school, Prim,” Katniss reminded her.

She didn’t want to force her sister. Katniss knew better than anyone how hard it was to pull yourself together enough to be around other kids that were all whispering about your situation whenever you turned your back, but she had to admit that it’d be a lot easier on her if Prim went back to school. She wouldn’t have to make trips into town and pretend she was working anymore, for one. And Prim would get the education she deserved and craved. 

“I know. I was thinking about it, actually,” Prim said. “I just didn’t know how to bring it up.”

“Talk to Rory about it,” Katniss suggested. “I’m sure he’d be happy to welcome his friend back.”

The low hanging clouds kept the town still, just as Katniss had hoped they would. Their black, ominous forms threatening to dump the season’s first snow upon the town, and the warning they brought made it much easier for Katniss to walk around, stopping at the fountain to decide her next move. 

She’d have to arrive home quietly. Prim couldn’t catch her near the field. Though Peeta never quite told her how to get the food from the crops without Prim seeing her there, she assumed it had to be yet another layer of deception she’d have to add to the growing list of untruths she’d dealt her sister. 

“What brings you to town on a day like today?”

Gale. She hadn’t thought about seeing Gale in town. 

“It’s nice around here on days like this,” Katniss said with a shrug, scooting to her left to allow Gale to hop up and sit at the edge of the fountain next to her. “The calm before the storm is always nice. Quiet, a little eerie. And the only people around are the people who absolutely have to be out here, so nobody’s going to pay attention to me.”

“Except for me, I guess,” Gale smiled, leaning on his side and nudging Katniss with his shoulder.

“You found me,” Katniss deadpanned. 

“Where’s Prim?”

“At home,” Katniss said. “Your brother is there with her.”

“ _Really_?” Gale asked, his mouth hanging open. “You’d allow something like that?”

“I trust my sister,” Katniss retorted, a slight edge to her tone. 

“They _are_ teenagers, Katniss,” Gale quickly reminded her. 

She didn’t like what Gale was implying.

“Barely teenagers,” Katniss corrected, glaring at Gale. 

“Still.” He shook his head and looked up at the clouds. “I was about Rory’s age. Weren’t you?”

“No!” Katniss bellowed. “And Prim won’t be, either!”

“Alright, alright,” Gale laughed, throwing his hands up in surrender. “Calm down.” He hopped off the fountain and threw his delivery bag over his shoulder. “I have to get back to work. I’ll see you later.”

“Who was it?” Katniss blurted out, immediately embarrassed for asking the question.

“Who was what?” Gale ask, cocking his head in confusion. 

“That you..” Katniss pursed her lips together and sighed. “When you were Rory’s age?”

“Oh.” Gale laughed lightly and shook his head. “Madge Undersee.” He adjusted the bag on his shoulder one last time and turned. “I’ll see you later, Katniss,” he called from over his shoulder. 

Gale’s admission made Katniss feel uneasy. Earlier in the day she was certain her sister wouldn’t lie to her, but then again, Prim probably thought the same thing about her. She hopped off the fountain easily, leaving town as fast as she could. It was definitely time for her to get back home. 

XXXX

“So what kind of work did you do today?” Prim asked, swirling a forkful of corn into her mashed potatoes. 

“I went on a few deliveries with Gale,” Katniss said, trying to think of something else to add. “There were a lot today. He had to use a shoulder bag and everything to keep it all together, so he definitely needed the help.”

“I see,” Prim said, eyeing Katniss suspiciously. “Rory didn’t know anything about you working for their family.”

“Maybe they just never told him.” Katniss shrugged, keeping her eyes on her food. “He was at school the day I was there.”

“Maybe,” Prim said, pushing her plate away. “I’m not very hungry. I’m going to bed.”

With the slam of Prim’s door, Katniss ran to the living room window and looked out into the darkness. She knew Prim didn’t believe the new string of lies she’d told her, but she had no idea how to fix it. She needed to talk to Peeta. Maybe he’d have an answer for her. She just didn’t know how to get in touch with him now that he’d left. 

Her need to talk to Peeta only grew even stronger the next day, when Prim burst into the house, cheeks red and eyes swollen, and started yelling at Katniss.

“You never worked for the Hawthornes at all!” she accused, swiping at her running nose with her sleeve. 

“What are you talking about?” Katniss asked, jumping up from the kitchen table

“I talked to Gale this afternoon,” Prim started, rounding on Katniss. “He said he doesn’t know anything about you working for his family and you’ve never made any deliveries with him. You’ve been lying to me this entire time! Are you selling yourself, Katniss?”

“No!” Katniss cried, rushing to her sister. “Prim, I swear I can explain everything that’s happened. I swear…”

“Then what’s happened?” Prim demanded, the hurt evident in her tone. “Because I can’t stop thinking about what awful things you’ve done, and I don’t want to eat food that’s tainted with lies.”

“Prim,” Katniss said soothingly. “We had nothing. _You_ had nothing. Nobody would hire us, you saw that yourself. The Hawthornes have enough trouble feeding their own family let alone the two of us. I didn’t know what else to do…”

“What’d you do?” Prim muttered, raising her puffy eyes to her sister.

“I stole from the bakery...”

“Katniss!” 

“I only did it once, I swear!” Katniss said quickly, pressing a finger to her sister’s lips, hushing her. “A few nights after that I saw someone in the field and he was able to give us food. As much as it as we want, forever. I just had to give up something in return.”

“What’d you give him?” 

“Warmth,” Katniss said, not realizing how it must’ve sounded to Prim. “I traded the warmth of the district for the restoration of our crops.”

“But there’s nothing there…”  

“There is, Prim!” Katniss insisted. “You just can’t see it because I’m the one who made the bargain.”

Prim fell silent, her eyes lingering on her sister’s face as a scowl took over her own.

“You’re crazy. You’re hallucinating right now.” Prim walked to the window and stared out at the field. “There is _nothing there_!” Prim yelled, pointing out the window. She turned away from her sister and wiped more tears from her eyes frantically. “Why are you still lying to me, Katniss?” she hissed. “Why can’t you just tell me what’s really going on?”

“Prim,” Katniss said, stepping closer. “I swear I’m telling you the truth. I hated lying to you like that. It tore me up inside. I wouldn’t make it worse by adding to it.”

Prim wasn’t buying it. “I can’t even look at you right now,” she muttered, pushing Katniss away before storming off to her bedroom.

Katniss tried to chase after her. She grabbed for Prim’s arm in attempts to stop her, but she refused, not stopping until she’d reached the top landing of the steps, securing a safe distance between her and Katniss. 

“And I’m going back to school,” Prim announced, her voice echoing down the stairwell. “Anything to keep me out of this house and away from you!”

The slam of Prim’s door sent Katniss sprinting from the house and toward the barn with some strange hope that Peeta would be in there. The sight of the empty barn brought out the loudest scream she could muster between her sobs, the blanket he’d used, folded neatly in the corner untouched. 

“Please come back,” Katniss cried. “Please come back and tell my sister the truth.”

It took all of her strength to leave that barn. She tried to reason with herself. Peeta would never come back. He’d done what he was sent there to do and he had moved on. It was time for Katniss to do the same. But no matter how many times she tried to convince herself, the more she found herself feeling that it wasn’t true. 

She refused to go upstairs that night. Instead, she slept next to thefirst floor window, still in her day clothes with another one of her mother’s old blankets wrapped around her shoulders. With the kitchen chair pulled up near the wall, she rested her head on her arms and tried to get some sleep. 

He stood in a different spot this time, just at the edge of the field. But as Katniss slowly woke that night and her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she knew for sure that it was Peeta. He’d heard her. He’d come to help her again. 

She stood up quickly, lightly tapping on the window to get Peeta’s attention and saw him motioning for her to come out outside, but she couldn’t yet. She didn’t have Prim. 

Taking the stairs two by two, she moved as fast as she could into Prim’s room, rousing her sister roughly. Before Prim could wake up enough to start another argument, Katniss had dragged her sister out into the cold and in the direction of where Peeta stood waiting for them. 

“Look!” Katniss said, pointing to Peeta. “He’s right there.”

“No, Katniss!” Peeta said, throwing his hands in the air. “No!”

“Who is it?” Prim said, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. 

“The boy that helped me get the farm back,” Katniss explained. 

Prim looked around, her gaze passing where Peeta stood several times. “I don’t see anyone.”

“He’s right in front of you.”

“Katniss, don’t,” Peeta pleaded. “Please. I was trying to get you out here first so I could explain something to you.” He paused, waiting for Katniss to turn her attention to him. “She’s not going to be able to see me.”

Katniss went numb. She’d been in such a hurry to grab Prim and show her that Peeta wasn’t a lie that she ignored his cues to try and get her out there without Prim first. 

“I don’t know what’s going on with you Katniss,” Prim snapped. “But I don’t like it. I wish you’d stop lying to me like I was some little kid. I can handle things without your protection. When you’re ready to tell me the truth, let me know.” 

Nothing more was said as Prim turned around and strode back into the house, leaving Katniss and Peeta outside as the first snowflakes of the year had finally begun to fall. The cold breeze that came with it drove Katniss into action. She took off running toward the barn, ignoring Peeta’s calls for her in her desperation to put as much distance between her and the house as she could, not even bothering to turn on the light when she got there. 

She collapsed onto the barn floor, her body cold and exhausted. In the blink of an eye, everything suddenly felt so hopeless. 

“I’m sorry this didn’t go the way you were hoping it would.”

Katniss hadn’t even noticed Peeta enter the barn until he spoke. She looked up just in time to see him turn the light on and walk toward her. He disappeared behind her just before the heavy fabric of the white blanket draped over her shoulders. 

“Thank you,” Katniss whispered. She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders and observed Peeta’s rosey cheeks and red nose. The front of the his hair was wet from melted snow, and a tiny droplet of water clung desperately to the end of a curl, shaking under the vibrations of his shivering. “Aren’t you cold?” 

“I’ll be alright,” Peeta said, dropping down to the ground next to Katniss. “What about you? Will you be alright?”

The conversation felt familiar to Katniss, but the reason for it was completely different.

“I don’t know how to get her to believe me,” Katniss confessed. “I should have never lied to her in the first place.”

“I should’ve told you sooner that she’d never be able to see me,” Peeta said. 

“You sort of did,” Katniss reminded him. “Maybe not in those words, but you did say she wouldn’t see you.”

“I didn’t exactly make myself clear though, did I?” 

Katniss shrugged. What did it matter now? 

“Just give her some time to cool off,” Peeta suggested. 

“That’s why I’m out here,” Katniss said. “To give her space.”

“It’s not because I’m here?” Peeta quipped, pretending to pout. 

Katniss couldn’t help but laugh. “Aren’t you going to get in trouble?” she asked. “For not going home?”

Peeta turned to look at Katniss, the empty blue of his eyes searching her face. For what, Katniss wasn’t sure. He took a deep breath and said the words on the exhale. 

“I don’t really have a home.” He looked away quickly, as though he was embarrassed by the admission. 

“I have a hard time believing that,” Katniss said, confused. “You’re just seventeen.” 

Peeta shrugged, finally turning back to look at Katniss. “I haven’t been home in a long time.”

“Your family must miss you.” Katniss couldn’t stop her mind from wandering. She thought about what it might be like to leave Prim, or if Prim left home. How hard it’d be to wonder day in and day out where she was, how she was, or if she’d ever get to see her sister again. 

“They probably do, but I’ll never know that.” He fell silent as he began to run the tips of his fingers through the the dirt on the barn floor, making a quick doodle of a flower under the sun. “Why’d you decide you’d steal from the bakery?” he asked suddenly.

She really didn’t want to discuss her motives for stealing with him, but the look on his face, a genuine interest that seemed slightly tinged with disappointment, made her feel as though she had to explain herself. 

“Old man Mellark doesn’t really pay attention to the outside sales anymore,” she said. “He’s pushing 80, his eyes are going, and it just seemed to be the easiest place to get a quick bite for my sister.”

“Old man Mellark?” Peeta asked. There was a hint of amusement in his voice, and his lips turned up at the corner. “That’s what the town’s calling him?”

“That’s what Gale calls him.” Katniss shrugged, scooting in a little closer. “I just went with it.”

“Gale?” Peeta asked, his eyebrows quirked in interest. “Is that your boyfriend?”

“No,” Katniss said, quicker than she had planned. “I mean.. he tried to hold my hand once, but.. no. We’re not.. together or anything.”

Peeta nodded and gave a noncommittal grunt, his gaze trained on the dirt flower he’d drawn. 

“Any girlfriends?” Katniss asked, laughing at the look on Peeta’s face when he snapped his head up. “Well you asked me!” she reminded him. “Being on your own, you probably have a lot of time for girls.”

She wasn’t entirely sure why she’d asked, but she was oddly curious. Even if part of her didn’t want to hear the answer his answer if that answer was a yes.

“You’d be mistaken,” Peeta said, rubbing at the dirt and making the drawing disappear. “I have a job to do and I really can’t be getting caught up in relationships.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“You saw what my job was,” Peeta said. 

“So you just go around from town to town making bargains with people?” Katniss asked. “Why?”

“Not just anyone.” Peeta shifted, turning his body toward Katniss. “Just the guilty ones.” He must’ve noticed the look of offense on Katniss’s face, because he quickly continued. “It was your guilt that brought me here in the first place,” he said. “You felt bad about what you did, you didn’t like it. So I was sent.”

“You make it sound like it’s a punishment,” Katniss muttered, dropping her gaze. She couldn’t look at him. Not after knowing that it was her guilt that summoned him to that field in the first place. 

“Some think it is,” Peeta admitted. 

“I can’t see how having food and not having to steal anymore could be a bad thing. As long as I can get my sister to forgive me, that is,” Katniss retorted, lifting her head to eye Peeta suspiciously. “Are you a ghost or something? Is that why I’m the only person that can see you?”

She felt wary. The way he’d appeared and disappeared from her life, no family he could be with, his less than normal job. It didn’t quite add up. 

“No, I’m alive,” Peeta said. “I can feel things. Cold, warmth, sadness, love. I have a heartbeat, just like you.”

Suddenly, he grabbed Katniss’s hand, bringing it to rest against his chest. Sure enough, she felt a steady beat against her palm as a warmth from his body that didn’t match the chilled boy in front of her radiated through her hand. An involuntary shiver ran through her body in response to the contact, and when Peeta let go of her hand, she hesitated to move it away. 

“You could share this blanket with me if you want,” she managed to croak out, her hand still pressed to his chest. 

“Alright,” Peeta said, the left side of his mouth lifting up into a crooked grin. He dipped his body underneath Katniss’s outstretched arm, allowing her to pull a side of the blanket over his body. 

“Thank you again for trying to warn me that Prim wouldn’t be able to see you,” Katniss mutter sleepily. “You could have ignored me completely, but you didn’t.”

“It wasn’t entirely my decision,” Peeta confessed,” his voice low and airy. “He told me to come back to warn you about it.”

“He?”

“I guess you’d call him my boss,” Peeta said. “He needed me to come here to warn you that the only one in this town that can see me is you. The same way that you’re the only person in town that can see your field of crops.”

“Are you sure you’re not a ghost?” Katniss asked, moving away from Peeta slightly.

His face fell with the minor rejection, and he shook his head. “I can assure you that I’m very much alive. Ghosts can’t shiver from the cold,” he finished, pulling the blanket tighter. “Or sleep.” He yawned and stretched out his legs. 

She should have gotten up then. Bid Peeta a good night and retreat to her bedroom, but something stopped her. The same warmth that she felt when her hand was pressed against Peeta’s chest, only this time it streaked through her entire body. She moved closer again and lined her shoulder up with his before sliding down into the most comfortable position she could manage on the old barn floor. Before she knew it, her eyes grew heavy as she dozed off next to Peeta. 

When she woke, she knew it was time for her to leave as quietly as possible. Peeta had fallen asleep too, his head thrown back against the wall of the barn. Carefully, she slipped out from under the blanket and gently re-covered Peeta, observing the soft contours of his face as he slept while wondering what could have possibly happened to him to drive him away from his family.

The snow had picked up considerably during her time with Peeta in the barn. Thick flakes swirled through the air, and the ground was entirely covered in a sheet of bright white as far as the eye could see. Katniss smiled as she trudged through the cold accumulation toward her house. Somehow, no matter how cold it was, no matter how angry Prim was, the pristine white made her feel almost hopeful. Maybe Peeta was right and all Prim had to do was cool down a little. Once she did that, hopefully they’d be alright. 

XXXX

Prim’s anger outlasted the snow. After a day or so, even with the relentless cold, the snow melted, leaving behind a black sludge that almost immediately froze over. It looked unnatural, and felt even worse.  

The following Monday, Prim went back to school. She left the house early every morning, meeting Rory at the front of their property without saying so much as a goodbye to Katniss, and she didn’t return until just before dark, with Rory still at her side where he’d wait until he knew she was in the house safely before beginning his trek back home. 

It was the same thing, day after day. Dark days full of the same heavy, black clouds made way for even darker nights. The sisters’ interactions were minimal, the most coming as Prim begrudgingly ate the food Katniss would bring in from the field. Conversations were reduced to one word answers from Prim while Katniss spoke endlessly, desperately, as she tried to pull words and forgiveness from her sister, but it all seemed hopeless. 

The reality of just how dramatically their lives had changed came crashing down on Katniss the afternoon she spotted Prim and Rory talking at the edge of the property. It seemed innocent enough, two friends sharing a conversation before parting ways for the day. But then Rory leaned in closer and with a smile, Prim did too. The two met in a kiss that lingered far longer than Katniss could ever try to pretend was friendly. Friends didn’t kiss each other that way. 

She was in town before she knew it, walking through the thick fog that’d gathered in the square in search of Gale’s tall frame. When she spotted the dark haired boy side stepping between two townspeople on his way to the apothecary, Katniss shouted for him. 

“Gale!” 

He turned at the sound of his name, his face paling when he noticed that the voice belonged to Katniss. She saw him hesitate for a moment, like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to walk away from her or simply wait for her to reach him. 

Gale was clearly angry with her too. Katniss couldn’t exactly blame him for it. She had dragged him into her lies without his knowledge, and she hadn’t made any sort of effort to explain herself since Prim came home that day and told her she’d talked to Gale about everything.

“This is a surprise,” Gale said coldly. “Wasn’t sure I’d ever see you around here again.” 

“Look, Gale, I know you probably have no interest in talking to me,” Katniss rushed out, not letting Gale get the chance to say a word. “But I just thought I’d let you know that I caught your brother and my sister kissing this afternoon.”

“Why are you telling me this, Katniss?” Gale asked, stepping closer and dropping his voice. “ _They’re teenagers_ ,” he reminded her. “If you don’t think your sister’s going to start kissing boys, then maybe that’s something you should work out on your own. Maybe you can figure out _why_ it bothers you so much.” 

“What’s the supposed to mean?” Katniss snapped. She clenched her jaw, feeling the intent of Gale’s words hit her exactly where he was aiming. 

“Not every teenager is going to close themselves off to other humans just because you did,” Gale bit back. “You should be happy that Prim’s been able to rise above everything she’s gone through and enjoy herself a little bit. And I can promise you that Rory wouldn’t be kissing her if she didn’t want him to.” 

With that, Gale was done with the conversation. He breezed by Katniss, disappearing between a small crowd of men in front of the fountain, but Katniss wasn’t done with him. She followed, squeezing behind the same men as she grabbed for, and just managed to catch, Gale’s arm. 

“I know why you’re mad at me,” Katniss breathed, stumbling as Gale pulled her away from the group. “And I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I dragged you into my lies. I shouldn’t have done that to you and I shouldn’t have lied to my sister. Now I’ve hurt her, and she still hasn’t forgiven me. I never wanted to hurt anyone, I only wanted to keep Prim alive.”

“You could’ve just asked to help with deliveries,” Gale said. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looking over his shoulder to make sure nobody was listening to their conversation. “I would’ve helped you -- I tried to help you. You and your sister are all alone, nobody expected you to do this all on your own.”

Katniss scoffed. For Gale to even say something like that was almost comical. He was well aware of the situation between the Everdeens and the rest of town. 

“Well they have a strange way of showing that,” Katniss groused. “It doesn’t really come across that way when everyone in town refuses to hire you.” 

Gale lowered his gaze, settling it on a twig near his feet. It must’ve been interesting, because he kept his eyes there, staring at the piece of debris as though it would catch fire if he stared at it hard enough. Katniss was right, she knew that. And it seemed that Gale finally did too. 

“I have a few deliveries to make,” Gale mumbled, running his hand over the back of his neck. “Did you want to help? For real this time?” 

With a nod of her head, she followed Gale away from the square. At least someone had forgiven her. If only Prim could do the same. 

XXXX

The barn light was on that night. Katniss noticed the thin sliver of brightness through the doorway and didn’t hesitate to go outside to meet Peeta. She’d given him permission to stay in the barn whenever he wanted to in the days following the fallout with Prim, and he’d become an unexpected confidant to Katniss. 

Katniss often wondered if it was a good idea, letting a strange boy onto her property. Her father never would’ve allowed it, but since her father wasn’t there to protect her anymore, she let Peeta stay anyway.

That night when she entered the barn, she saw Peeta huddled in the corner looking worse for wear. It was alarming to see him look so distressed. Though it wasn’t the first time she’d sensed that something was wrong, it was the first time that he didn’t try to hide it from her. 

“What’s wrong?” she asked, sitting down next to him and forcing him to look at her. 

“I thought you weren’t going to show up tonight,” Peeta said with mock sadness.

“I’m serious, Peeta,” Katniss snapped. “Do you always have to give some kind of sarcastic remark?”

Peeta signed, dropping his gaze to the ground. “It’s nothing. I just can’t deal with him tonight,” Peeta murmured, shrugging out of his black jacket and throwing it down at his side. 

“Him who?” Katniss urged, dropping to the ground next to him. It wasn’t the first time he’d mention a man. His boss, he’d said the first time she asked, but she wanted to know more. Why would he deal with a boss that upset him as often as this man seemed to do? 

“The one who made me like this.” 

It wasn’t exactly the answer Katniss was hoping for. In fact, it only brought more questions. Made him like what? But she’d never seen Peeta as upset as he was then, so she decided not to press the issue. Instead, she let a comfortable silence fall between them and, without thinking, she slipped under Peeta’s outstretched arm, allowing him to pull her in close to his side. She let her cheek rest against the warm cotton of his white shirt, reveling in the way it smelled. 

It took her a moment to realize that it smelled like spring. The flowers that bloomed, the grass after it’d been cut, and even the way the sun seemed to bring out that intoxicating scent of the Earth as everything came back to life. And for the first time, she realized she was going to miss that. Those black clouds in the sky would never allow for that kind of warmth or life as long as they were there. 

“What’s with the white rose?” Katniss asked. “On your jacket.”

“He insists that I wear it,” Peeta replied, dropping his boot onto the rose, crushing it. “He has them everywhere, and I have no idea why. It’s like this blinding sea of white in his garden. I think it makes him feel more innocent than he actually is.”

“I take it he’s not a very nice guy?” Katniss asked. 

Peeta scoffed. “Not very nice isn’t even the half of it.” 

Katniss wanted to ask more questions. She wanted to find out more about Peeta and this man he seemed to constantly be at odds with. She let a comfortable silence fell between them, hoping that Peeta would open up on his own. 

“Prim’s still not talking to me,” Katniss finally confessed when it was clear that Peeta wasn’t going to give away any more information than he already had. “I don’t know what to do to get her to talk to me. I’ve tried everything.”

“Don’t you think she’s taking this a little too hard?” Peeta asked, shifting to look at Katniss. “Have you said that to her?”

“I’ve never lied to her, Peeta. Never,” Katniss said. “And I don’t think she ever expected me to. Asking her why she’s taking it so hard would probably only make things worse. Besides, she thinks I’m crazy because she can’t see you when I insisted you were there, so that doesn’t help.” 

“That could put a wrench in things,” Peeta said. “Have you tried starting a conversation with her to see how she responds?”

“Of course I did. I asked her if she was happy to be back at school and got nothing. Speaking of which…” Katniss shook her head and inhaled through her teeth. “Today I caught her kissing her friend Rory when he walked her home.”

“Really?” Peeta asked. “She’s young. Was it her first kiss?” 

“I’m not sure,” Katniss answered. “It may not be the first, but I’m pretty sure Rory is the first boy she’s ever kissed.”The silence grew again, far less comfortable than the first as the implications Gale had laid down earlier in the day moved to the front of Katniss’s mind. “My sister’s had her first kiss before I have,” she muttered. 

“You’ve never been kissed?” Peeta asked, unable to hide the shock from his voice. His tone jabbed Katniss right in the sore spot Gale had left earlier. 

“Well when your father dies and your farm dries up, I can’t really say it was the first thing on my mind,” Katniss explained, a little harsher than she’d intended. “I didn’t exactly have time to think about which boys I wanted to kiss when I felt responsible for helping my mother figure out a way to bring food or money into the house.”

Peeta nodded, nervously picking at a spot on his pants. “I understand.”

“Have _you_ ever been kissed?” Katniss snapped, turning the spotlight onto him. She was tired of thinking about her own milestones -- or lack thereof -- for one day. 

“Yes...” Peeta admitted, trailing off to gauge Katniss’s reaction. “But it was a long time ago.”

“You’re only seventeen,” Katniss gibed. She had to throw a little of Peeta’s sarcasm back at him. It stopped her from wondering who the girl -- or girls --could’ve been, or what else he’d done with them. “It couldn’t have been _that_ long ago.” 

Thankfully, Peeta smiled. While it successfully kept any visions of his lips on another girl’s away, it didn’t keep Katniss from staring at them. She wasn’t sure why the thought of him kissing someone bothered her so much, or why she couldn’t take her eyes off of his mouth, but she wasn’t ready to let herself think about that. 

“Maybe it just feels like it was a long time ago,” Peeta said. His own eyes dropping to Katniss’s lips. 

With her gaze intently resting on the soft plumpness of his mouth, glistening slightly under the dim lighting, she couldn’t stop herself. She leaned forward, her intent immediately becoming clear to Peeta and he moved, planning to meet her in the middle. 

Katniss closed her eyes, anticipating the moment when she’d feel those lips on hers, but it never came. Her eyes shot open to find Peeta just millimeters from her lips, but with an almost pained expression on his face. 

“We really shouldn’t…” he croaked, the warmth of his breath tickling Katniss’s face. 

“Oh…” 

That’s all it took to snap her out of it. She moved back, dropping her eyes down to the ground as she nodded. Was she really about to kiss this boy? She hardly knew him. “Right. You’re right.” She could feel the heat of embarrassment creeping up her neck and taking over her cheeks. Clearing her throat, she pushed herself up from the barn floor. “I should… probably go to bed now. Um.. goodnight.” 

Katniss waved aimlessly, unsure if Peeta had waved back or if he’d even seen her wave at all. She couldn’t look back at him. She wouldn’t. All she could do was let her legs carry her out of the barn as quickly as they could manage as she cursed at herself under her breath. How could she be so stupid? 

It seemed that Peeta felt the same way. In the weeks that followed, he stayed away from the Everdeen’s property completely. Katniss looked out her window and to the barn every night, one part of her hoping to see that sliver of light pouring from the barn, the other part relieved to see that it wasn’t there. It was probably better that Peeta stayed away, Katniss told herself. There really was no reason for him to continue coming back anymore. They’d made their bargain and he had a job to continue doing. There was no point to him being there. The only problem was, Katniss was having a hard time believing any of it was true.

Then the unthinkable happened. 

It started just as spring should have been turning into summer. When the heat would rush in and the sun’s rays would warm a person from the inside out for days. But those black clouds hadn’t budged since they’d first arrived. Not that Katniss had expected them to. They’d become a permanent fixture, plunging the district into endless winter days. 

It was all too familiar to Katniss. A case of the common cold that eventually infiltrated Prim’s chest, growing worse instead of better and bringing on the same nagging, barking cough that their mother had. It was a sound that Katniss would never forget and hoped she’d never have to hear again. 

For a time, Katniss was hopeful. They had the medicine Gale had delivered all those months ago. Prim would take the recommended week’s worth of the serum and be fine in another week or two. But after the last drop of the syrupy medicine was forced from the bottle, Prim had yet to respond. 

Even if they’d had the money for another bottle, or enough to afford an even stronger concoction, it didn’t matter. The apothecary, along with much of the rest of the town’s businesses, was barely operating. 

The lingering cold weather had made it impossible for any of the town’s farmers to grow a successful batch of crops. As a result, there was nothing for the farmers to sell to supply the town’s businesses with. The herbs required to concoct the medicines Prim would need were unavailable. Food supplies throughout the town were scarce, Gale’s job delivering goods was in jeopardy, but all the while, the Everdeen’s farm continued to thrive. 

It was all happening beyond Katniss’s control, but she knew it was because of her. She tried to help. With four potatoes and six ears of corn in her bag, she set off for town with intentions of giving the food to someone, anyone who’d take it. Anything to make her feel more in control of the situation than she was. She didn’t know how she’d explain how she got it, but at that moment it didn’t matter. However, by the time she made it into town, the food that was safely tucked away in her bag had disappeared. 

At first, she thought they’d fallen out. Perhaps there was a hole in the bag and little by little, as she walked to town, things had fallen out. But after inspecting the bag inside and out, no hole was found. The food had literally disappeared right into thin air, and it became clear to her that the food was never intended to be shared outside of the household. There was nothing that she could do to help the town now that she’d started to destroy it. 

It was something Katniss hadn’t considered when she agreed to the bargain with Peeta. She never sat and thought about the fact that the longer it was cold, the less the town would be able to survive and thrive. She never stopped to think that if it stayed too cold for long, nobody would have food. 

She finally understood what bargaining with Peeta meant, and the anger hit her all at once. While it may have helped her and Prim initially, it also was a detriment to the entire town, putting it on the fast track to economic ruin and denying her sister the medicine she so desperately needed. Nobody was a winner. 

She felt betrayed. The only thing she could think to do was run, run as fast as she could to the barn. Faster than her legs could keep up. 

“Peeta!” she yelled breathlessly, clinging to the barn’s entrance. “Peeta, where are you?!” The harshness in her voice dissipated in an instant when the weight of what she’d done hit her again. She wasn’t sure if she more angry or desperate. “Please, Peeta!” she cried. “Please come to the field.”  

She waited all night for him. With Prim down on the couch, she was able to tend to her sister while keeping an eye on the window. And as soon as she saw that familiar black shadow back once again, she was on the move. 

“I’ll be right back, Prim,” Katniss whispered, pressing a kiss to Prim’s fevered forehead. Her skin was so hot, perhaps even worse than their mother’s temperature was just before she died. It only strengthened Katniss’s resolve as she marched out of the house and toward Peeta in the field. 

“How could you do this?!” She yelled, setting the lantern on the ground and slamming her hands into his chest. “Because of you, the entire town is suffering and my sister can’t get the medicine she needs!”

Peeta hardly flinched. His face was solemn, but he didn’t look shocked at the anger coming from Katniss. 

“I told you there were consequences for everything you did, Katniss,” he finally said. There was an emptiness to his voice that, for the first time, matched his eyes. It didn’t go unnoticed by Katniss. “This is no different.” 

“Then you never should have come here!” She threw her hands up, bringing them down to cover her face. “This hasn’t helped anyone!”

“Katniss...” he brought his hands to rest over Katniss’s, gently prying them away from her face. “Look at me.” Slowly, Katniss lifted her eyes to Peeta’s, falling right into their blue emptiness. “When you make a bargain with me, there’s always something or someone that’ll be lost because of it. It’s the dark side of what I do.”

“Then why do you do it?!” Katniss pleaded, a fresh set of tears welling in her eyes. “How can you do this to people?!” 

“Because I have no choice, Katniss.” The admission was honest. It was intriguing and maybe even a little sad, but all Katniss saw in that moment was an opportunity. 

“Then save my dying sister,” she demanded. 

“I can’t do that.” Peeta shook his head, clamping his hands on Katniss’s upper arms to keep her steady when she began to thrash around angrily. “Not unless we make another bargain.”

“Fine,” Katniss blurted out, pulling Peeta’s hands from her arms. “Take my life to save my sister’s.”

“I can’t do that, either,” Peeta said. “I can’t take a person’s life. That’s not what I do.”

“Then what _can_ you take?!” Katniss shouted, her desperation growing. 

“No,” Peeta said. He pursed his lips together, refusing to tell her. 

“Tell me, Peeta,” Katniss urged. “Please. My sister is dying.”

Peeta sighed and scrubbed his hand over his face, inhaling deeply through his nose. “Your mortality,” he muttered. “It’s the only way to stop death.”

“Do it.” 

“Katniss, you really don’t want--”

“Do it!” she yelled. “ I don’t care what the consequences are!” 

“You’re not thinking clearly,” Peeta started. He reached a hand out and cupped Katniss’s jaw, forcing her to look at him, to listen to him. Just for a moment. “Take the night to think about it and you can tell me your decision tomorrow.”

“My sister may not have the night, Peeta!” Katniss bellowed. “Don’t you understand?!”

Peeta fell silent and dropped his head down in defeat. “Yes,” he croaked. “I do.” He took a step back and slowly extended his hand toward Katniss. 

She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t think about what she was doing. Her hand shot out quickly and latched on to Peeta’s. Immediately, she felt all of the warmth leave her body, replaced by an empty cold that she’d later learn would never quite go away. It wasn’t the same as the chill of endless winter days, or the cool rush of getting caught out in a summer’s rain. It went deeper than that. It was a gnawing, bone-deep cold, like part of her had disappeared.But at that moment, it didn’t matter. Prim was going to be ok, and that’s all she wanted.

XXXX

Prim’s recovery was gradual. Almost natural, even under the most unnatural of circumstances. But even with the unconventional way that Katniss was able to mend her sister, she made Prim take it easy. She doted on the girl like a mother bird doted on her chicks, running the risk of smothering the girl with her attention and affection.

To see her sister pull back from the brink of death and return to her old self probably would’ve been enough for Katniss. Her second bargain with Peeta would’vefelt worth it right then and there, but it was her sister’s forgiveness after weeks of animosity that sealed it for Katniss. 

If only she could feel content with everything else. Nothing had changed in town. In fact, things were more dire than ever. The sweet shop was the first to close. People were desperate for food and candy fell pretty far down on the list of necessities, but with the closing of the sweet shop came the closing of many other businesses in the town, including the apothecary. But it was the day that the bakery closed that started Katniss on a path that’d change everything.

For the first time since their bargain to save Prim’s life was made, Peeta was there, the light leaking from the barn doorway, as it always had. Somehow, though, it seemed brighter that night. 

She should’ve known he’d be back eventually. There’d been too much left unsaid between the two of them for that to be the end of things. The end of what, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that she was angry and hurt that last night they saw each other. She trusted Peeta, and she felt betrayed, but there was more to this story, she knew there was. He just needed to tell her what it was. 

There was no hesitation in her decision to go to him. Even though she didn’t know what she’d be going to. Was he angry with her? Would he care to listen to her long enough to offer his own explanations for the things that’d happened? She didn’t want to waste another minute wondering. She had to find out. 

Her nerves almost stopped her halfway to the barn. Without a lantern to guide her way, she stood idly in the field -- the sounds of the cold night crawled over her skin -- staring at the flickering light affixed to the barn’s doorway. 

There was a crack behind her. The kind of crack that sounds when a person steps on a twig as they walk. She finally took off running then, making it to the barn in seconds. Pulling the large doors closed behind her, she stayed in the small space between the door and wall to catch her breath and prepare herself to see Peeta. 

He looked vacantly ahead, his arms propped up on his knees, hands dangling down between his legs. Katniss cleared her throat to try to get his attention.

“Hey,” she murmured cautiously once he finally turned his head to look at her. He nodded in her direction, but said nothing. “Are you okay?”

She took it upon herself to sit down next to him, just as they always had. And when Peeta didn’t move away or ask her to leave, she let herself relax slightly. 

“He told me the bakery closed today,” Peeta muttered, refusing to look at Katniss. 

“Yeah, it did,” Katniss confirmed. 

“And the sweet shop a week ago?”

“Yes.” 

“I never should have done any of this. I’m no better than he is,” Peeta said. “I knew what trading warmth for food would do to the town, and now the bakery and the sweet shop were forced to close because of me.”

“I don’t understand why you’re blaming yourself.” Katniss reminded him. “You were only doing your job.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Peeta said, shaking his head. “Icame here to protect that bakery and I did the exact opposite.”

“Why are you so concerned with the bakery?” Katniss asked, a little irritated. “It’s not like you even know any of these people in town.”

Peeta laughed. It was sad and humorless, but it was a laugh all the same. “That’s where you’re wrong, Katniss.”

Finally, Peeta turned to Katniss. The bags under his eyes were puffy and dark, like he hadn’t slept the entire time he’d been away. He shook his head, obviously displeased with himself.

“And then agreeing to take your mortality like that?” He made a noise deep within his throat, a groan. Like he was in agony. “It’s a dangerous path that I’ve put you on.”

“It’s been fine so far,” Katniss said, unable to see why any of it was upsetting Peeta as much as it was. “Did you get in trouble for doing it? For the bakery closing?”

“Oh no,” Peeta scoffed. “He loved it. He laughed about it for hours.”

Katniss couldn’t stand wondering any longer. Finally, with her voice just barely above a whisper, she asked the question she’d been wanting to ask for months, “Please tell me who _he_ is.” 

She saw the contemplation on his face, the fear that entered his eyes at the thought of answering the question, but it wasn’t fear for himself. “I’ve already put you through so much already…”

“No, you haven’t,” Katniss said firmly. “I made these choices myself. Nothing you say now is going to change the choices I’ve already made.”

Peeta closed his eyes. He still seemed to be battling over whether or not to say anything more. Finally, he choked out a name. “Coriolanus Snow.” His eyes fluttered back open and he looked at Katniss with an intensity she’d never seen before. “He showed up on my family’s property one night...” He pulled his knees up even closer to his chest. “Thirty-five years ago.”

“What?” Katniss looked at Peeta in shock. “How...”

Peeta gave her a sad smile, but continued his story. “I’d caused some trouble one day. Threw a few rocks through the window of the sweet shop. I don’t even know why I did it now. I was angry with my mother, she said I wasn’t kneading the bread properly and gave me a slap. It wasn’t anything new, but that day I snapped.”

“I felt bad about it right away,” he continued, an air of relief infiltrating his words. Like he’d been holding his story in for so long, that getting it out was exactly what he’d needed. “At that time the sweet shop owners were the poorest family in the district. They didn’t have the money to repair the window in even the simplest of ways. They hardly anything to trade for the labor, so they were left with a gaping hole in the front of their store. And because of me they had to close the shop for a time. And it never felt right to have our bakery fully operational when they had to close because of me”

“Wait,” Katniss said. “The bakery and the sweet shop? The ones here in District 12?”

“Yes,” Peeta said, extending his hand out to Katniss, attempting to flash one of those dynamic grins Katniss had seen when they’d first met. “Peeta Mellark,” he offered as Katniss reluctantly shook his hand.

“You’re a Mellark..” Katniss muttered. “That means..”

“That the old man you stole from was my father,” Peeta confirmed. “That’s why Snow sent me to you.”

“No,” Katniss murmured, dropping her head into her hands. “This whole time I’ve been talking to you, you’ve known that I stole from your _family_?” To say she was embarrassed would be an understatement. “You must hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” Peeta said. “At least not anymore. I know what it’s like to be desperate to help someone. I just wish I knew why Snow was sent to me, or why he continues to try to make my life hell by doing things like this. It hardly makes sense. He just showed up one night, in the alley behind the bakery. He told me if I gave him something, he’d make sure the sweet shop got back on their feet.”

“What’d you give him?” Katniss managed to ask. Her mind was racing. She never expected to hear that Peeta had anything to do with the bakery, or that him showing up went far deeper than her own guilt. 

“My father’s health.” His face fell at the memory. “I didn’t offer it to Snow. It’s the only thing he’d accept. And I stupidly agreed.”

“He never gave you the choices you gave me,” Katniss realized. “Why?”

“That’s just Coriolanus Snow,” Peeta said with a shrug. “Cold, unforgiving, power-hungry. And I want to scream at myself now because I really thought that things would be alright. My father was sick, but he was still able to run the bakery, but after awhile he got _very_ sick.”

“Like Prim,” Katniss muttered. 

“I knew he was dying,” Peeta continued. “And I knew that there was no way the bakery would’ve been able to go on if he did. So I called to Snow again and I asked him if there was any way I could stop this. And there was only one solution.”

“Give away your mortality.” 

Peeta nodded. “And I gave it willingly, just like you,” he said. “Part of me thinks Snow knew exactly what he was doing the entire time.”

“Like he trapped you into this?”

“Something like that.”

“Why aren’t you with your family?” Katniss finally asked. She’d given away her mortality the same as Peeta, but she was still home with her sister. Why couldn’t Peeta be with his?

“That was my final mistake,” Peeta said. “The final bargain, born out of my desperation to escape my mother. It took me away from the mortal world and to a world led by Snow. He claimed he saved my life, that I should be grateful to him. And to repay him for the favors he’d done for me, I’d have to spend eternity making bargains with other guilty souls like me.” He shifted, locking eyes with Katniss as he grabbed her arm to keep her from moving. “These bargains are _never_ free from consequences. Even if I’d stayed in the mortal world, eventually I’d have to watch everyone I’ve ever loved die.”

“So we’re alike then,” Katniss observed. “No longer mortal.”

“Not entirely similar,” Peeta said. “You still have connections to the mortal world. And I can see you repeating the same mistakes I made. All I wanted to do was stop this from happening to you.”

“I refused to let my sister die,” Katniss bit. “There was no other choice for me.”

“I understand,” Peeta sighed. “Because I didn’t want my father to die either. I just thought that if I could stop this from happening to someone else, they may get a shot at a happiness I’ll never be privy to.”

“Why? Why try to protect me?” Katniss asked.

He smiled again. That same, sad smile, void of any of the vinegar or charm he’d had when they first met. It was the smile of the lost seventeen year old boy that Peeta really was.

“It’s surprising what I’d do for you, Katniss,” he whispered.

Katniss took a deep breath. “It’s not surprising,” she said. “If I could, I’d do the same for you. I just don’t know how.”

With everything that Peeta had done, or tried to do, to help Katniss, she had no way to help him in return. No way to protect him from Snow. He was trapped in a world that she was not a part of, despite their similarities. 

“Just promise me you won’t make the same mistakes I did,” he said. “That’s how you can help me.”

“Then tell me what the consequences of giving away your mortality are,” Katniss urged. “I need to know what I’m in for.”

“Just like I said, you’re going to have to witness anyone you’ve ever loved die,” Peeta began. “Your family, your friends. They’ll all leave one day. You’ll never have children, though sometimes I wonder if that’s a blessing in disguise. Who wants to watch their children die?”

Katniss shuddered at the thought. She never wanted children to begin with, but having the choice taken away from her still felt unfair. Even so, never having the option to have a child in the first place eliminated ever having to watch them die. The latter was an option that was too cruel to even think about.

“The bottom line is, you’re destined to be alone. Forever,” Peeta explained. “The immortal heart beats and feels the same as any mortal’s, but the difference is that there’s a price we have to pay for falling in love. That’s a mortal luxury we have no business engaging in.”

“Have you ever paid that price?”

“No,” Peeta said, leaning in closer. “But I think I’m about to.”

It felt like all of the air had been taken from Katniss’s lungs. Peeta’s words, the closeness of his body, the way he was looking at her. She was drowning in him, and she knew she had to say something, anything, to get him talking again. To keep that gaze from swallowing her whole. 

Hoarsely, she manage to find her words, “Are there any pros to living like this?”

“Yeah,” Peeta nodded, raising his fingers to Katniss’s face. “Not a single wrinkle will ever touch this skin.” He ghosted his fingers up her cheek, under her eye, and finally up to her hair. “Your hair will never turn gray. Sickness cannot touch you. Everything you are now, you will be… forever.”

She wasn’t sure if it was Peeta’s words that pulled her to him, or the way the pad of his thumb brushed across her forehead. But it didn’t matter, because when her lips finally pressed against his it felt like something she’d never get tired of. The plump bottom lip that was safely capture between hers could’ve stayed there forever if she’d allowed it, but she couldn’t. She had to push him away. He’d warned her that there was a price she’d pay for this, but as his tongue swept between her lips and softly slid across hers, she was powerless to stop it. 

They were both goners, the fear of consequences lost somewhere in between their ragged breaths and roaming hands. A line had been crossed, and they’d never be able to return to the other side again

XXXX

“No deliveries again today?”

“Nothing.”

Gale sighed loudly and kicked at a cluster of sludge, forcing the flecks into the air and down. As they fell, they dotted the snow with black, tainting the pristine patches that’d been lingering, the white almost shining, for days. 

It’d been weeks since Gale had anything to deliver around town. The extra money his delivery job brought in ensured that his whole family had food to eat. But now with the town’s economy shattered and businesses on the steady decline, Gale’s help was rarely needed. 

Rory and Prim were off in their own world just out of earshot. They walked hand-in-hand as Rory animatedly told a story Prim seemed to find incredibly amusing. She threw her head back and laughed, hitting him on the shoulder. 

“Well at least they appear to be doing pretty well,” Gale observed. “You know, Rory was almost in hysterics when Prim was sick?”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Gale nodded. “He kept trying to sneak out of the house to go visit her. They may just be kids, but, I don’t know.. maybe there’s something there.”

“Something like what?” Katniss asked, trying not to laugh. The thought was foolish. “Like love?”

“Ever been in love, Katniss?” Gale bit, suddenly serious. “Do you know what that feels like?”

On the outside, Katniss didn’t flinch. She remained still, silent, and did everything she could to keep the thoughts that flew through her mind from showing on her face. Peeta’s lips pressed against her body, his tongue flicking out to taste her skin. The way the warm wetness left behind tickled the spot, sending a shiver that traveled down between her legs every single time. Goosebumps formed on her arms at the thought of it. 

It was exhilarating in a way that Peeta seemed to fully understand and respond to. She thought of his hands and how they cupped her breasts. The way one would sneak away and follow a path down to slip between her thighs right to the spot that throbbed the most. And when he’d begin to rub her through the fabric of her pants, swallowing her gasps with kisses, she’d feel him. Unmistakably hard and pressed against her leg. 

She always thought something like that would scare her. The implication of what it meant and what it led to were apparent. But to her surprise, knowing that she did that to him only made her want him more. 

She’d asked him once what he did about it. Did he touch himself after she left the barn for the night? Did he bring himself to completion with thoughts her racing through his mind. Did he savor how her tongue felt sliding along his and try desperately to retain the sounds of her moans while his hand worked to relieve the pressure? Did he know that she did all of this and more every night after leaving that godforsaken barn? After leaving him?

The more they tried to resist each other, the less they were able to. They hadn’t gone further than touching each other through their clothes. They knew they shouldn’t, but it wouldn’t take much to get there. All one of them had to do was say the word and they’d both be consumed.

“Do _you_ know what it feels like, Gale?” Katniss snapped. She didn’t mean to sound so harsh, but his condescending tone bothered her. She wasn’t a child, and she didn’t appreciate Gale of all people talking to her as if she had no idea what it felt like to want someone with all of your heart. And it was none of his business whether or not she knew what that felt like.

“I do.” Gale pushed himself away from the fountain and rounded on Katniss. Gray eyes locked on her lips as he spoke. “It feels like hell. Like you’re not even in control of your own body. All you want is for that person to see you the way you see them. And when they don’t? Hell.” 

Before she could stop it, his lips were pressed against hers, and they stayed there, working in tandem with Katniss’s for a time before he pulled away. He brought a hand up to cup Katniss’s cheek and choked out the words again. 

“It feels like hell.” He turned, calling for Rory to follow him home and stormed off in the direction of his house, the younger boy trailing behind him, demanding to know why they suddenly had to leave so early. 

Katniss was preoccupied the entire walk home. Gale was in love with her. She tried to pinpoint when it had began. Over the last year, they’d seen a lot of each other. He’d done her family a huge favor the day her mother died, an act she’d always be grateful for. But they’d had their struggles, too. At times it felt as though they lived in two different existences, and she supposed that now they did. But even before that, there were things they couldn’t see eye to eye on. Corners of life that Gale had covered that Katniss had never even stopped to think about. 

Could that attempt to hold her hand been where it began? She brought her hand to her lips, grazing the flesh with her fingers as she recalled what it felt like to have Gale’s lips there. She tried to find a word to describe it, but when warm was the only word that kept coming to mind, she knew there was something missing. 

She liked Gale, really. Spending time with his was never a burden, and Prim really liked his brother. But the truth was that Katniss just did not feel the same way for him as he did for her. And it wasn’t like she could love him anyway, even if she did. The last thing she wanted was to drag Gale into another one of her problems, and being in love with Katniss was just that -- one big problem.

What would become of the two of them now that Gale had made this confession? Could they continue as friends or would the matter of Gale’s feelings get in the way of that of that? 

More importantly, Katniss wondered if she _should_ continue to see Gale. Little did he know, but he’d driven a wedge between the two of them as soon as his lips touched hers. It wasn’t all because Katniss didn’t feel the same way about Gale. In fact, she could see herself possibly liking the kiss if only his lips hadn’t felt wrong to be anywhere near hers. At the end of the day the only lips she wanted to feel against her own were Peeta’s. And in that moment, she knew she had to see him, she had to give him the word that she didn’t want to stop anymore. Every decision had a consequence, and she’d dealt with them. She was willing to deal with another if it meant that she could be with Peeta. 

“Go in the house and wash up,” Katniss said as she and Prim reached their house. “I’ll get things gathered for supper and I’ll be back in so we can start cooking.” 

“What was wrong with Gale?” Prim asked, lingering in the doorway. “He seemed a little upset when he and Rory left.”

“I don’t know, Prim,” Katniss said, exhaling loudly. “He’s got a lot going on right now.” 

Prim shrugged and appeared to accept Katniss’s answer. She closed the door, and Katniss made her way to the field before she took off running in the direction of the barn. 

“Peeta!” Katniss yelled breathlessly, running straight for the boy who appeared to be asleep on the barn floor. 

He shot up quickly, scrambling to his feet as Katniss threw herself into his arms. 

“What’s wrong?” He asked, smoothing her hair. “Did something happen?”

“It’s okay,” Katniss assured him. “I just don’t have much time, that’s all.” She threw her arms over his shoulders, wrapping them around his neck. It didn’t take much effort to pull him down into a kiss that quickly intensified. And there she felt every spark and every tingle that was absent from Gale’s kiss. These lips belonged on hers. If she didn’t stop now, she never would. She pulled away with a gasp and traced Peeta’s bottom lip with her finger. “Tomorrow, after Prim’s left for school, I need to see you.” 

“Alright,” Peeta said, dropping his hands to Katniss’s hips. “I’ll be here. What’s this about?”

“I can’t tell you right now,” Katniss said, shaking her head. “Just be here tomorrow morning.” 

It felt like days waiting for the next morning to arrive. Katniss barely slept a wink, passing the time instead by pacing the length of her bedroom, reciting the words she needed to say to Peeta repeatedly. She couldn’t mess it up. Her message to him had to be clear, and though she knew she’d never quite figure out how to put into words every single thing she needed to say to him, she hoped he’d understand. 

Rory arrived at the house at his usual time, beaming at Prim as she exited the house. Katniss followed closely, observing the two as Prim slipped her hand into Rory’s. It was enough to make Katniss smile herself. To know she’d given her sister the opportunity to continue to experience this kind of love made her believe that the bargain she’d made was worth it. Every second of Prim’s life since she recovered was worth it. 

She watched Prim and Rory walk until they were just specs at the end of the dirt road before sprinting back to the barn to get to Peeta. And as promised, he was there. Waiting quietly on top of the white blanket she brought out to him all that time ago. It seemed like decades ago now, and it was hard to fathom that it’d only been a year. But none of that mattered at the moment. When she reached Peeta, she practically jumped into his arms, kissing him hard on the mouth as he stumbled backward and tried to keep them upright, but they toppled anyway, down onto the blanket. 

It didn’t seem to bother them, though. In an instant, they were lost in each other’s kisses, stopping only to breathe before diving right back in for more. His tongue was sweet that morning, giving off hints of honey and blackberries. She had to stop. She couldn’t get wrapped up in those details. Not yet. She had to say it, and she had to say it quickly, while Peeta was still entranced by their actions. 

“I need you,” Katniss breathed, her mouth still just millimeters from his. “I don’t care how and I don’t care how often, but I need you. I need to _be_ with you. Come to my room with me.” 

“Katniss…” Peeta trailed off, his eyebrows knit together in concern. “You know we can’t.” 

“It’s too late for that,” Katniss said. “It’s too late for me to pretend this hasn’t already happened. And if you even try to tell me that it’s not too late for you too, I’ll know you’re lying.” 

The blue eyes that held an emptiness that she, at one time, couldn’t understand stared up at her. She understood it now. It was an emptiness her own eyes now held. The losses they’d experienced and the losses yet to come, the eternity they now faced, the weight of their decisions crushing them. It was all there, but there was a spark of something amidst the hollowness, and Katniss saw it flicker in Peeta’s eyes as his lips came back up to meet hers. 

It was all the confirmation Katniss needed for them to be up and off the barn floor and on their way toward the house. Katniss led the way with Peeta following behind her, their hands linked them together. 

With the slam of Katniss’s bedroom door, their kisses resumed, only this time they held a fervor that they hadn’t yet reached together. There was no reason to stop, anymore. Hands moved to buttons as they quickly undressed. There was a thrill that Katniss felt deep within her belly finally being able to pull the black clothing from Peeta’s body. She’d felt Peeta many times before. Pressing against her thigh, underneath the palm of her hand, and even grinding into her core. But never before had she felt all of Peeta. She’d never felt him without the restrictions their clothing, and the thought of finally being able to made a chill run through her just as the last of Peeta’s clothing was shed and he climbed on top of her on the bed, kneading her breast with one hand as he peppered kisses down her neck.

The moment his fingers were finally able to touch her sensitive clit was the moment she knew she’d never come back from this. To feel his fingers touch her, slide through her wetness and eventually push into her left her body staggering and lit a fire inside of her that she wasn’t sure could ever be smothered. Her hips moved in ways she’d never moved them before, trying to draw Peeta’s fingers deeper, trying to get them to touch places that were aching for him and had been for longer than she’d ever realized. 

Then she found his erection, and the moan that spilled from his lips as he watched his cock slide through her hand only encouraged Katniss to continue. He added to it by bucking his hips, setting a pace that’d carry them through the rest of the day.

His cock felt different than his fingers. Wider, more painful, but filling her completely in a way she knew she’d never get tired of. As long as he went slowly, she could deal with the pain. She helped guide him, keeping one hand on his stomach to slow him down, only easing up and allowing him to advance when she was ready for more of him. 

They moved together slowly, each thrust easing the pain little by little until the pace they’d established earlier became a rhythm that’d bring them both to climax. With the aid of Peeta’s thumb massaging quick circles over her throbbing clit, Katniss fell first, the spasms of her walls squeezing Peeta’s cock in quick intervals. He followed soon after, stopping all movements as he came inside of her, and she held him to her tightly, reveling in every pulsating twitch he made as he came back down. 

Neither one of them spoke. There was nothing to say at that moment. But sleep was ready to claim both of them, and the only thing they could do was allow it, slipping into a sleep that for the first time in many months was restful. 

XXXX

The bellowing voice of someone in the room pulled both Katniss and Peeta from sleep. The voice was too deep and too bone chilling to be Prim. That’s when Katniss noticed him standing in the corner of the room. He dressed completely in black, his white hair, startling and unsettling in contrast. Katniss, scrambling to pull the covers over her body, screamed for the man to leave her house, but he stood still, unaffected by Katniss’s demands. 

“Peeta?” she whispered, turning to look at him. His face was pale as he stared at the man, and she followed his eyes across the room right to the white rose pinned to the man’s chest. 

“No,” Peeta said, more to himself than anyone else. As he turned his head to look at Katniss, his eyes moving wildly across the contours of her face, he confirmed what she’d been dreading since she’d noticed the rose. “It’s Snow.”

“It’s so nice to finally meet you in person, Miss Everdeen,” Snow hissed, stepping closer. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Just tell us why you’re here,” Peeta demanded. 

Snow laughed, looking down at the clothing spread across the bedroom floor. “I think you know why I’m here, Peeta. That was a stupid thing to say.” 

“It’s not Peeta’s fault!” Katniss cried. “He warned me that this was a bad idea, and I didn’t listen.”

“Katniss…” Peeta said through gritted teeth. “That’s not helping.”

“Miss Everdeen,” Snow began, crossing his hands in front of him. “This has been going on long before today. Before you even realized where your heart was leading you. Peeta is not innocent here. His heart led him on the same journey as yours led you. And matters of the heart are not a privilege an immortal is entitled to. You’ve broken that very important rule, and because of that you’ve severed your connection to the mortal world and now you’ll have to pay dearly.”

Katniss knew it was the end for her and Peeta. Snow would never allow them to be together. Not that they had any right to be together in the first place. They both knew what could happen if they let their hearts make decisions for them.

“You’d do me no good as a bargainer. No good at all,” Snow began, stroking his chin. “You’d never be able to convince a person to give you the things I’m looking for.”

“Take the food back,” Katniss offered, hoping that Snow would agree. “Take away the food my sister and I desperately need.”

“It’s too late for that, Miss Everdeen,” Snow said, wagging his finger. “As soon as your connection to the mortal world was broken, the food went with it. There is always your sister, though...” He put his hand up, silencing Katniss who had opened her mouth to speak. “She could have lived, you know. Even though your connection to her is gone.”

The weight of Snow’s words hit Katniss straight in the gut. She scrambled from the bed, pulling her sheets around her body as she stood to face Snow. Just the sight of him up close was terrifying, enough to make even the most foolhardy person stand down. Eyes blacker than night, teeth yellow and chipped as he sneered down at Katniss’s cowering form.

“Please, not Prim,” Katniss pleaded, tugging at Snow’s sleeve. “Anything but Prim.”

Ice cold fingers wrapped about Katniss’s arm, the tips blackened and dead. “Don’t you understand, Miss Everdeen?” Snow said, almost sounding amused. “You have nothing else left. You and Peeta have put me in quite a difficult position. Because of your… actions, the two of you are now bound together for eternity.”

“But I’ve already lost my sister,” Katniss reasoned, trying to keep her voice steady. He couldn’t see that she was scared and desperate to keep him from her sister. “I’ve lost my connection to her. Isn’t that enough for you?!”

“No, Miss Everdeen. It’s not.” 

Katniss sprinted for the door, dropping the sheet to the floor in her haste. But before she could even turn the handle, her vision turned gray and the world around her spun on its side, transporting her, Snow, and Peeta into the field behind the house. It was barren once again, like nothing that could sustain life had ever existed there. She didn’t have a stitch of clothing on, and no manner of trying to move to cover herself worked. She was humiliated and she couldn’t move a muscle as the cold wind whipping through the field. 

It played out like a nightmare. Slow, unavoidable, lingering. While Katniss stood frozen, forced to watch the scene unfold, her sister had no idea what was about to happen. As always, Rory walked her home that day and they’d shared a kiss before Prim disappeared into the house and Rory retreated back toward town. 

“Prim!” Katniss yelled desperately. “Run! Go find Rory!” 

“Yell all you’d like, Miss Everdeen,” Snow said. “She can’t hear you.”  

Katniss heard Prim calling for her. She didn’t sound distressed, just curious, but after a minute, her calls stopped and things went silent once again. Then the sound of the explosion rocked the house and blew out the windows as a fire that looked anything but natural engulfed the home. 

When Prim’s calls for Katniss rang out again, they were blood curdling. She screamed Katniss’s name, screamed for help, but no matter how hard Katniss tried, her body refused to move. Nothing was going to save her sister this time.

It felt like Prim was screaming for hours, each one a little more agonizing than the last, and at some point Katniss’s screams for her sister mixed in with them. However, it couldn’t have been that long. What felt like hours was probably merely minutes. Minutes that dragged by, burning the sounds of Prim’s suffering into Katniss’s mind forever. 

Then all at once, everything stopped. 

The raging fire died, leaving behind charred remains of the Everdeen’s home, the screams were cut off abruptly, and whatever force was preventing Katniss from moving was lifted. She sprinted from the field and toward the house, coming to a sudden halt when the sound of townspeople yelling and rushing to the smoldering house filled the air. 

Gale and Rory led the pack of people. The two rushed into house while others threw buckets of water where smoke continued to billow. It was useless, Katniss knew that, but the sight of Gale carrying her sister’s lifeless body from the house took her away from the useless efforts of those who came. 

“Prim!” 

Katniss ran for her sister, screaming her name like a broken record as Gale ran back into the house, yelling for her. 

“Someone should tell the boy he’s not going to find you in there,”Snow laughed, suddenly at Katniss’s side again. “He’ll find nothing in there now that he’s gotten the girl out.”

With a flash, Snow was gone, leaving Katniss cold, naked, and alone. 

The weight of a blanket falling onto her shoulder caused her knees to buckle as Peeta’s hand pressed against her back. Peeta. She’s almost forgotten about Peeta.

“Katniss!” Gale’s voice echoed through the field.

“I’m out here Gale!” She choked out between sobs. “Please! Someone hear me!”

“You can’t, Katniss,” Peeta warned, wrapping his arms around her. “He can’t see you anymore.”

She pushed him away, gathering the blanket around her tightly. “This is your fault!” She screamed. “You knew this would happen!” 

“I didn’t, Katniss, I swear I didn’t!” Peeta pleaded, attempting to pull her to him again. She resisted. “I’ve never seen these consequences before. I didn’t know. I never would have stayed if I knew he’d do something like this.”

Her sister was gone. She could barely breathe anymore, but she managed to pull herself to her feet and make her way over to the crowd that gathered around Prim’s body. Though nobody was able to see her suffering, she collapsed to the ground and wept.

Soon, something unexpected happened. As the men draped a white sheet over Prim’s body and started to carry her away, the black clouds that’d plagued the sky for months began to clear, dissipating into the air as though they were being summoned somewhere else. With the clouds gone, the sun was finally able to come out. A warm and glorious sunshine that the town hadn’t seen in months, and it was then that Katniss knew -- her fate was sealed.

XXXX

 “How long has my mother been gone?” Peeta asked, stopping next to Katniss in front of the bakery. 

The hustle and bustle of town had come back in full force since the day of the fire at the Everdeen’s home. Sunny days and warm air kept away the cold that had put the town in ruin, and the townspeople were finally rebuilding. 

“I guess it’s been about five years now,” Katniss said. “You’ve really never come into town to watch them before today?”

Peeta shook his head. “I knew it’d be too painful to see them,” he said, catching a glimpse of old man Mellark as he limped out and deposited bread into the bin at the front of the bakery.

It wasn’t easy for Katniss in the weeks following Prim’s death. She resented Peeta for a long time, questioning why it was her that seemed to lose the most. It wasn’t until a screaming match in the middle of the night that she realized what Peeta had lost -- her. 

Physically, she was still there at his side, day after day. The only thing they had left in the world was each other, but she’s always knew that the one she loved was half of the reason that her sister was dead. The only thing that made it more painful was knowing that the other half was her.

“There he is,” Katniss said. “There’s your dad.”

The pain of losing Prim haunted Katniss daily. Days and nights blended together when all she could hear were her screams for help from inside that burning house. It was impossible to escape, which was probably Snow’s intention. If she never saw that man again it’d be too soon. He’d done his damage. And that damage created a rift between Katniss and Peeta that would be impossible to ever repair. 

On good days, Katniss could just see Peeta. The quick but surprisingly caring boy that she’d fallen in love with, but on bad days he was a monster. She could hardly look at him on days like that, and no matter how many times she told herself that he didn’t know, that he never planned for it to happen, she couldn’t forgive him for it. 

“Are those my brothers?” Peeta asked, craning his neck to get a better glimpse at the two men through the bakery’s window. 

“I think so,” Katniss confirmed. “Everyone always refer to them as old man Mellark’s sons.”

“Did they ever mention their third son?”

Katniss thought about it. Had she ever heard the whispers in town that the Mellark family had once had three sons? 

“No,” Katniss decided. “Nobody talked about it.”

Peeta’s face fell. With one final glance into the window, at the family he’d lost all those years ago, he turned to Katniss. “I’m ready to go now,” he muttered. 

The pair walked away from the bakery and started their trek toward the edge of town, but someone caught Katniss’s eye. Dark hair and gray eyes she’d recognize anywhere. She turned, watching as Gale passed her, clearly unaware that she was near him. She still wasn’t used to that, yet. Being in the middle of the crowded town and knowing that nobody could see her, not even her old friend. 

Gale stopped near a few men talking near the fountain, and she listened to their conversation. 

“Any trace of the oldest Everdeen girl, yet?” one man asked. 

“Nothing yet,” Gale answered. “I’m sure she’ll come around soon.”

“Don’t count on it,” the other man said gruffly. “I bet she started that fire that killed her sister and fled to another town to get away.”

Gale clenched his fists at his sides and Katniss felt a rage bubble inside of her over what the man had said. “Katniss wouldn’t do that,” he snapped.

Did people really believe she’d kill her sister and flee? What hurt the most was that there was nothing she could do to show them that it wasn’t true. Gale’s insistence could only go so far. There was no other choice but to let the town believe that’s what happened. 

She finally understood why Peeta had never ventured back into down, even to get a quick glance at his family. The people were ruthless, happy to paint anyone who left as a villain just so they’d have something to talk about. 

She and Peeta traveled on the same dirt road that once led to her house, one that she’d walked so many times first as a girl, holding her father’s hand, then on her own when it became her responsibility to sell their belongings. But this time, rather than making that wide left turn onto their property, she and Peeta continued walking. There was nothing left on the land but flat, barren land and further back, three spots where both of her parents and sister were buried. 

They didn’t know where they were going or where they’d end up. All they knew was that they had each other and only each other, on good days and on bad days, and that wherever they ended up over time, they’d end up there together. Forever.

 

 

 

 


End file.
